Consumer-Owned Community Flour and Bread Societies in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

Between 1759 and 1820, 46 or more community flour and bread societies were established in England and Scotland. They were self-help retail organisations set up in response to rising bread and flour prices and to the perceived malpractices of intermediaries in the corn market. Unadulternated 'pure' flour and bread were sold to members at 'prime cost'. The societies were a rudimentary form of 'co-operative' business organisation and were either owned directly by consumers or were operated indirectly through a friendly society. There were four main categories of flour and bread company, small flour clubs, shipwright societies (in naval dockyards), friendly society corn mills, and joint stock flour and bread companies. The large societies such as the Hull Anti Mill, the Sheffield Club Mill, and the Birmingham Flour and Bread Company were vertically integrated consumer organisations operating with transferable stock in breach of the 1720 Bubble Act. The means used to manage the societies were a combination of friendly society and company approaches. These institutions received actual or tacit support from the authorities and successfully fought the prosecution of the three largest societies.