A Bat's Eye View — Stop 2
Bugler Bat Visits The Co-Op
It was just before dawn in Mossley and Bugler Bat was looking for a place to roost for the day. He could hear pigs oinking, sheep baaing and cows mooing as they waited to meet their end at the Co-op slaughterhouse on Waterton Lane. Bugler shuddered and flew on.
Illustration by children of St George’s School
The Co-operative Society had started in Rochdale in 1856, and Mossley was the first town in Tameside to have a Co-operative shop. Now they were springing up all over Mossley as they were a much fairer way for people to shop.
Bugler noticed the poorest people still didn’t shop there though. Although Co-ops were cheaper and the goods were high quality, they didn’t give ‘tick’.
Bugler was looking for somewhere quieter to hang out so he floated over to the Co-op undertakers where coffins were being made and bodies laid out but he thought they wouldn’t be much company so he glided on down Arundel Street.
He crept into another Co-op building and found himself in an inviting looking room. Inside it was very peaceful, not like any other shop which would usually be full of people chatting and buying goods. Bugler noticed that instead there were shelves of books along the walls and people of all ages sitting reading, lost in stories or looking things up.
This was the new Co-op reading room which Bugler Bat had heard about so he relaxed upside down on a top shelf and fell asleep to the excited murmuring of people discovering books for the first time.
On October 2nd, 1856, a group of men met in The Old Shears Inn on Carrhill Road.
They were working out the best ways of bringing food to the poor at reasonable prices. This group formed a cooperative society.
They adopted the Rochdale Cooperative Rules appointed trustees and opened a shop on Lancaster Street.
By 1859, plans were made for new shops to be opened at Arundel Street including Grocers, Drapers Offices, shoe shop, butchers, slaughter house.
The following year a decision was made to also open a Co-Operative Store in Bottom Mossley and on Mossley Brow.