Bradford on Avon Co-op
Bradford-on-Avon Industrial & Provident Society Ltd
At one time Bradford almost seemed to have been ruled by its co-operative society which was founded in 1861. Its shops covered the town and sold every commodity except antiques.
The headquarters were in Whitehill, alongside the co-op bakery, while the main shop was in Silver Street. A butcher and draper opened in a 1930 new-build shop in the Shambles. There was a branch store in Bath Road, demolished in the 1960s for road-widening.
In 1966 came a proposal that Bradford join other local co-ops in the West in forming a bigger group which would be more competitive and have greater buying power. Inevitably local control slipped away to the larger organisation which was wound up in the late 1980s.
After closure, the area had to wait until 2009 for a re-emergence of co-operative shops when the Southern Co-op purchased the Winsley shop from the failed Nisa chain and 2010, when it bought George Stone’s Mace store in Winsley Road, Bradford.
The brass token from Bradford Co-op could be exchanged for a quartern loaf of bread. The Museum has a small collection of tokens, as well as various billheads and printed notices.
The Museum’s Oral History Group has been collecting reminiscences of the Co-op. Its history has been the subject of articles in the Preservation Trust’s newsletter Guardian Angel.
The Bradford Co-operative Society shops in Silver Street.
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The Committee and officials of the Bradford Co-operative Society in 1930 at the time of the opening of the drapery and butcher departments in the new building at numbers 1 and 2 Shambles in 1930.
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Numbers 1 and 2 Shambles are now the Ex Libris bookshop and the Dorothy House Hospice shop.