The Rochdale Pioneers
What's it all about?
The Rochdale Pioneers film is a true tale of adversity and companionship, told through an extraordinary wheelbarrow journey. A story of humanity and the heartfelt struggle of an inspiring group of people that fought against lost hope in a desperate attempt to build a better life for themselves, a better life for their families and a more hopeful future for everyone.
A little bit of history
The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was formed by 28 workers - ten of them were flannel weavers whilst others were cloggers, shoemakers, joiners or cabinet makers.
There had been earlier co-operatives, many of which had run into difficulties and ceased trading. The Pioneers learned from those experiences and from the writing of people like Robert Owen, George Jacob Holyoake and William King and built a workable model of co-operation that could be replicated by other groups of people.
The 1840s was known as the “Hungry Forties” with high levels of unemployment and those who were in work had seen their wages reduced by large amounts. Retailers at the time often did not give fair weights of goods bought and food adulteration for example adding chalk to flour was common. The Pioneers’ society promised to sell good quality produce at full weight and fair prices.
The Pioneers set out their aims in “Rule First” of the Society’s 1844 Rule Book. The aims started with the opening of a shop, then extended through housing, manufacturing and farming and ending with “to arrange the powers of production, distribution, education and government” along co-operative lines.
News of the activities of the Pioneers soon spread and co-operative societies were set up using the “Rochdale Method” across the UK. The first history of the Pioneers was written in 1858 by George Jacob Holyoake and was entitled “Self-Help by the People”. It was written to encourage co-operatives to be formed. The book was translated and published in France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Spain. By 1862, the Pioneers had bought a visitors book to record their UK and international visitors who came to learn more.
A photograph was taken in 1865 of 13 Pioneers still living in the town as people who were following the Pioneers example, wanted to know what they looked like.
Photographed: 13 of the original Pioneers
Back Row (left to right) James Manock, John Collier, Samuel Ashworth, William Cooper, James Tweedale, Joseph Smith. Front Row (left to right) James Standring, John Bent, James Smithies, Charles Howarth, David Brooks, Benjamin Rudman, John Sowcroft
Following experiments by the Pioneers in wholesaling during the 1850s, they encouraged co-operatives to come together to set up their own Co-operative Wholesale Society in 1863. The Society was formed with several of the Pioneers as members of its committee.
Now, as part of the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives (IYC), The Co-operative British Youth Film Academy (BYFA) will retell the story of The Rochdale Pioneers inspired by the 1944 film Men of Rochdale.
The new film is a courageous and heartwarming, vivaciously spirited insight that marks the conception of the modern co-operative movement; a movement that has changed the world as we now know it.