------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------- | | | | Date | Members | Capital | Business | Profits | | | | ------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------- 1855 | 1,400 | L 11,032 | L 44,902 | L 3,109 1865 | 5,326 | 78,778 | 196,234 | 25,156 1875 | 8,415 | 225,682 | 305,657 | 48,212 1885 | 11,084 | 324,645 | 252,072 | 45,254 1898 | 12,719 | -------- | 292,335 | ------- ------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------- They soon extended their business in variety as well as in total amount. In 1847 they added the sale of linen and woollen goods, in 1850 of meat, in 1867 they began baking and selling bread to their customers. They opened eventually a dozen or more branch stores in Rochdale, the original Toad Lane house being superseded by a great distributing building or central store, with a library and reading room. They own much property in the town, and have spread their activity into many lines. The example of the Rochdale society was followed by many others, especially in the north of England and south of Scotland. A few years after its foundation two large and successful societies were started in Oldham, having between them by 1860 more than 3000 members, and doing a business of some L80,000 a year. In Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other cities similar societies grew up at the same period. In 1863 there were some 454 cooeperative societies of this kind in existence, 381 of them together having 108,000 members and doing an annual business of about L2,600,000. One hundred and seventeen of the total number of societies were in Lancashire and 96 in Yorkshire. Many of these eventually came to have a varied and extensive activity. The Leeds Cooeperative Society, for instance, had in 1892 a grist mill, 69 grocery and provision stores, 20 dry goods and millinery shops, 9 boot and shoe shops, and 40 butcher shops. It had 12 coal depots, a furnishing store, a bakery, a tailoring establishment, a boot and shoe factory, a brush factory, and acted as a builder of houses and cottages. It had at that time 29,958 members. The work done by these cooeperative stores is known as "distributive cooeperation," or "cooeperation in distribution." It combines the seller and the buyer into one group. From one point of view the society is a store-keeping body, buying goods at wholesale and selling them at retail. From another point of view, exactly the same group of persons, the members of the society, are the customers of the store, the purchasers and consumers of the goods. Whenever any body of men form an association to carry on an establishment which sells them the goods they need, dividing the profits of the buying and selling among the members of the association, it is a society for distributive cooeperation.