Mr. _George Jacob Holyoake_ has written with much enthusiasm the _Jubilee History of the Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society_.[19] Many schemes have been started on lines similar to those of this one, but very few besides it have grown from the very beginning, and, having become to all appearance a permanent institution, can look back upon a career of fifty years with complete satisfaction. The society began in times of public distress. The ground was prepared for it by the "Redemption" Society, which was founded at Leeds in 1845, by admirers of Robert Owen, after the experiment at Queenswood had failed. It practiced a kind of co-operation and had some distinguished friends to wish it well. Among the speakers at its meetings was Dr. Frederic Hollick, still living, now a resident of New York city. The co-operative society was started as a means of getting cheaper flour for its members. On February 25, 1847, an appeal headed "Holbeck Anti-Corn Mill Association" was issued to the working classes of Leeds and vicinity by the "working people of Messrs. Benyon & Co.'s mill," Holbeck, inviting combination and subscriptions for establishing a mill to be the property of the subscribers and their successors, "in order to supply them with flour and flour only." Meetings were held, an organization was effected, and the mill was started. The history of the society and how it grew, how "flour only" was stricken from its scheme and other things were added and it branched out, how co-operative stores were established, how it gained the confidence of the public and the respect of rivals in business, its successes and its mistakes, its triumphs and failures, are told by Mr. Holyoake, year by year, in a detail in which everything is set down and nothing covered up. In 1897 the cooperative society had productive departments of flour, bakery, bespoke clothing, boot and shoe factory, brush factory, cabinet making, building, millinery, and dressmaking, employing 541 hands and turning over £26,949; 80 large stores for the sale of these and various other kinds of goods in Leeds and vicinity; drapery branches and boot and shoe stores; 43 butchering branches; and 37,000 subscribing purchasers. Its capital stood at £447,000; and its sales for the year amounted to £1,042,616.