Co-operative Congress

The Co-operative Congress is the national conference of the UK Co-operative Movement. The first of the modern congresses took place in 1869 following a series of meetings called the "Owenite Congress" in the 1830s. Members of Co-operatives UK (previously the Co-operative Union) send delegates to the annual congress, where reports of national bodies are made and debates held on subjects of importance to the Co-operative Movement. The meetings also include the Annual General Meeting of Co-operatives UK.

The first Co-operative Congresses were the Owenite Congresses, which provided a gathering place for the fledgling co-operative movement that was growing in the wake of the 1795 foundation of the Hull Anti-Mill, a corn mill that was also an early co-operative. The Manchester Congress of 1830, organised by the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Council, is widely cited as the first of the Owenite Congresses. However, George Jacob Holyoake, in The History of Co-operation, describes the discovery of a record of an even earlier Congress, at which Robert Owen had been present, this first Co-operative Congress being held in Manchester on 26 May 1827. The Owenite Congresses stopped in 1835, being replaced by Socialist Congresses with a broader range of delegates - but the 1860s saw increased agitation for them to be renewed from co-operators such as ET Craig and Alexander Campbell, and the first of the modern series was held in 1869.

The first of the modern Congresses was held in London. It was attended by a variety of British and foreign delegates, with co-operative activist (and author of Tom Brown's School Days) Thomas Hughes MP acting as its first president. Messages of support were read out from John Ruskin, John Stuart Mill and Florence Nightingale, who offered "any aid in my power to your Co-operative Congress, in whose objects I am deeply interested". It was the only one of the modern series not to be organised by Co-operatives UK: this was because one of the orders of business for the first Congress was the creation of the organisation, then called the Co-operative Central Board. Co-operatives UK was founded out of concerns that the success of the Co-operative Movement might lead to a loss of identity and its original vision, and was intended to be a national organisation to bind the Movement together and emphasise the role of co-operatives in wider society.

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