The Rochdale Pioneers Museum, which reopened last year after a refurbishment and extension, is two kinds of museum at once.
It presents a historic site, the 1844 shop at 31 Toad Lane set up by the Rochdale Pioneers, but is also a museum about an idea: the worldwide co-operative movement that the shop inspired.
Visitors enter through the newly pared-back space of the original shop. Daylight floods in through the Georgian windows onto whitewashed walls and a flagged floor, and the only furniture is a trestle table bearing samples of the original commodities sold: flour, sugar, butter, oats and candles, with a corner desk for accounts.
The simple interior is allowed to make its own statement, wisely, I think, especially since none of the original shop-fittings remain, and there are no graphics or other interpretation. Instead, a well-informed enabler greets each visitor and invites them to discuss what they are seeing.
Radical enterprise
The foodstuffs, for example, are used as a way of explaining essential historic background. Unlike most shopkeepers of the time, the Pioneers sold only pure, unadulterated food, accurately weighed and measured.
But the most radical difference was that customers were part owners of the business and shared in the profits. These democratic ideals had a far-reaching influence.
Going from the shop into the museum one enters a different world. Here text is king. Densely written panels inform visitors of the original 28 members, the founding of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, later the Co-operative Group, and the history of co-operative manufacturing, banking and insurance.
Upstairs, more text, here on over-dominating red pods, carries the story into the present with co-operative educational and fair trade initiatives.
I must admit to giving up on this book on the wall and opted to take home the catalogue. Also, there is an excellent short audiovisual that is image-led and features only brief introductory text, making it much more accessible.
I was disappointed by some of the displays of original objects. I admired the memorabilia from the heroic period of the Co-op, including heavy-duty delivery bikes, measuring scales and massive trophies for choral competitions, but the smaller wall-mounted cases and drawers contain scrappy mixtures of things, with scant interpretation.
More could be made of the great treasures, the original account and visitors’ books, though I gather they are being transcribed by volunteers and will figure on the website. Audio and blown-up facsimiles could make these come to life.
The minute book, written in neat copperplate by the Pioneers, who initially ran the shop outside their day jobs, movingly captures the idealism and business acumen, which they brought to their radical enterprise.
Early visitors signing in included Friedrich Engels and Beatrix Potter, plus great numbers of acolytes from outside the UK. This internationalism continues today. Kobe in Japan has a full-scale replica of Toad Lane and in the first week of reopening visitors arrived from 33 countries.
Predictably, given the museum’s subject matter, education is a strong part of the offer. In the new Learning Loft and elsewhere one can try out original 19th-century co-operative society seals, imprinting suitable motifs of co-operation, including rowing boats, bee hives and wheatsheaves (one stalk won’t stand up by itself).
You can play shop in the 1840s, 1950s and today, record a message about co-operation, or calculate your “divi” from a year’s shopping.
Learning is also at the forefront in the People’s Business: 150 years of the Co-operative, a temporary exhibition at Manchester’s People’s History Museum. Here the story is also told thematically rather than chronologically.
The well-designed, colourful installation integrates clear text with striking large-scale images taken from archive packaging, advertising and shop interiors.
Divis and saving stamps
There is an engaging mix of objects, from 19th-century and pre-war packaging and advertising to more modern items.
I particularly enjoyed a display about the “divi” and its metamorphosis from tokens exchangeable for milk or bread to the present loyalty membership card. The 1960s blue-and-white savings stamps with their clover leaf logo gave me a nostalgic jolt.
The exhibition emphasises the Co-op’s innovation: the first store to create a UK-wide supply chain and do away with middle-men, the first with a fair-trade policy, the first ethical bank; and women were given an equal vote in co-op societies 80 years before gaining the parliamentary vote.
But perhaps the most important thread is the all-encompassing nature of the business, embracing shops, factories, insurance, banking, sport, holidays, education and funerals.
An early strapline was “from the cradle to the grave”. In 150 years, the message has hardly changed. A 2012 advertisement playing in the exhibition reassures that the co-op is “here for you when you need us”, “here for you for life”.
The People’s History Museum and the Rochdale Pioneers Museum both use the National Co-operative Archive of films and images to great effect. Some of the films shown are entrancing in themselves, such as the 1938 Co-operettes.
This stars actor Stanley Holloway who can’t remember (“I know it begins with a D”) what he is shopping for (it turns out to be the divi, of course). A delightfully surreal plot features two scantily clad Rita Hayworth-lookalikes as Carrot and Onion, making friends in front of giant soup cans.
Other films have a more serious purpose. The Co-op documentary unit’s coverage of the Manchester blitz is a unique record of the damage to the city centre.
The archive affords an extraordinary resource for the study of manufacturing, shopping and advertising. In the tea and biscuits section, I liked the packaging that proclaimed: “The mighty cup giver! The tea best suited to Birmingham’s water supply.”
One worry: at the People’s History Museum the approach sometimes seems more corporate than co-operative. Images of game employees enjoying amateur dramatics have their nostalgic interest and charm, but I missed the views of individuals.
These figure mainly as quotations from workers, which come over as comically laudatory. An example is Brenda Higham in 1951 stating: “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.” Or the current trainee who “enjoys every minute of it”.
I would have liked just a gram of subversion amid the torrent of admiration, and couldn’t help comparing artist Jeremy Deller’s show running at Manchester Art Gallery, where more anarchic voices cut through the authorised version of history.
Sara Holdsworth, a former head of programmes at Manchester Art Gallery, is a museum and gallery consultant
Rochdale Pioneers Museum
The People’s Business, People’s History Museum
It presents a historic site, the 1844 shop at 31 Toad Lane set up by the Rochdale Pioneers, but is also a museum about an idea: the worldwide co-operative movement that the shop inspired.
Visitors enter through the newly pared-back space of the original shop. Daylight floods in through the Georgian windows onto whitewashed walls and a flagged floor, and the only furniture is a trestle table bearing samples of the original commodities sold: flour, sugar, butter, oats and candles, with a corner desk for accounts.
The simple interior is allowed to make its own statement, wisely, I think, especially since none of the original shop-fittings remain, and there are no graphics or other interpretation. Instead, a well-informed enabler greets each visitor and invites them to discuss what they are seeing.
Radical enterprise
The foodstuffs, for example, are used as a way of explaining essential historic background. Unlike most shopkeepers of the time, the Pioneers sold only pure, unadulterated food, accurately weighed and measured.
But the most radical difference was that customers were part owners of the business and shared in the profits. These democratic ideals had a far-reaching influence.
Going from the shop into the museum one enters a different world. Here text is king. Densely written panels inform visitors of the original 28 members, the founding of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, later the Co-operative Group, and the history of co-operative manufacturing, banking and insurance.
Upstairs, more text, here on over-dominating red pods, carries the story into the present with co-operative educational and fair trade initiatives.
I must admit to giving up on this book on the wall and opted to take home the catalogue. Also, there is an excellent short audiovisual that is image-led and features only brief introductory text, making it much more accessible.
I was disappointed by some of the displays of original objects. I admired the memorabilia from the heroic period of the Co-op, including heavy-duty delivery bikes, measuring scales and massive trophies for choral competitions, but the smaller wall-mounted cases and drawers contain scrappy mixtures of things, with scant interpretation.
More could be made of the great treasures, the original account and visitors’ books, though I gather they are being transcribed by volunteers and will figure on the website. Audio and blown-up facsimiles could make these come to life.
The minute book, written in neat copperplate by the Pioneers, who initially ran the shop outside their day jobs, movingly captures the idealism and business acumen, which they brought to their radical enterprise.
Early visitors signing in included Friedrich Engels and Beatrix Potter, plus great numbers of acolytes from outside the UK. This internationalism continues today. Kobe in Japan has a full-scale replica of Toad Lane and in the first week of reopening visitors arrived from 33 countries.
Predictably, given the museum’s subject matter, education is a strong part of the offer. In the new Learning Loft and elsewhere one can try out original 19th-century co-operative society seals, imprinting suitable motifs of co-operation, including rowing boats, bee hives and wheatsheaves (one stalk won’t stand up by itself).
You can play shop in the 1840s, 1950s and today, record a message about co-operation, or calculate your “divi” from a year’s shopping.
Learning is also at the forefront in the People’s Business: 150 years of the Co-operative, a temporary exhibition at Manchester’s People’s History Museum. Here the story is also told thematically rather than chronologically.
The well-designed, colourful installation integrates clear text with striking large-scale images taken from archive packaging, advertising and shop interiors.
Divis and saving stamps
There is an engaging mix of objects, from 19th-century and pre-war packaging and advertising to more modern items.
I particularly enjoyed a display about the “divi” and its metamorphosis from tokens exchangeable for milk or bread to the present loyalty membership card. The 1960s blue-and-white savings stamps with their clover leaf logo gave me a nostalgic jolt.
The exhibition emphasises the Co-op’s innovation: the first store to create a UK-wide supply chain and do away with middle-men, the first with a fair-trade policy, the first ethical bank; and women were given an equal vote in co-op societies 80 years before gaining the parliamentary vote.
But perhaps the most important thread is the all-encompassing nature of the business, embracing shops, factories, insurance, banking, sport, holidays, education and funerals.
An early strapline was “from the cradle to the grave”. In 150 years, the message has hardly changed. A 2012 advertisement playing in the exhibition reassures that the co-op is “here for you when you need us”, “here for you for life”.
The People’s History Museum and the Rochdale Pioneers Museum both use the National Co-operative Archive of films and images to great effect. Some of the films shown are entrancing in themselves, such as the 1938 Co-operettes.
This stars actor Stanley Holloway who can’t remember (“I know it begins with a D”) what he is shopping for (it turns out to be the divi, of course). A delightfully surreal plot features two scantily clad Rita Hayworth-lookalikes as Carrot and Onion, making friends in front of giant soup cans.
Other films have a more serious purpose. The Co-op documentary unit’s coverage of the Manchester blitz is a unique record of the damage to the city centre.
The archive affords an extraordinary resource for the study of manufacturing, shopping and advertising. In the tea and biscuits section, I liked the packaging that proclaimed: “The mighty cup giver! The tea best suited to Birmingham’s water supply.”
One worry: at the People’s History Museum the approach sometimes seems more corporate than co-operative. Images of game employees enjoying amateur dramatics have their nostalgic interest and charm, but I missed the views of individuals.
These figure mainly as quotations from workers, which come over as comically laudatory. An example is Brenda Higham in 1951 stating: “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.” Or the current trainee who “enjoys every minute of it”.
I would have liked just a gram of subversion amid the torrent of admiration, and couldn’t help comparing artist Jeremy Deller’s show running at Manchester Art Gallery, where more anarchic voices cut through the authorised version of history.
Sara Holdsworth, a former head of programmes at Manchester Art Gallery, is a museum and gallery consultant
Project data
Rochdale Pioneers Museum
- Cost £2.3m (including development work at the museum, conservation, digitisation and the employment of outreach officers)
- Main funder Co-operative Heritage Trust
- Grants Heritage Lottery Fund; Esmée Fairbairn Foundation; John Paul Getty Junior Foundation; Pilsworth Environmental Company; Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
- Exhibition design Headland Design Associates
- Architect Loop Systems
- Exhibition fit-out Early Action (now The Freeman Group)
- Lighting and hardware consultant Fusion LX
- AV and film-making Fuzzy Duck
- Display cases ClickNetherfield
The People’s Business, People’s History Museum
- Cost £50,000
- Main funder the Co-operative
- Curator Lisa Keys, Minerva Heritage
- Exhibition design Darkhorse Design
- Exhibition ends 11 May
