TASCoS Box of Bicarbonate of Soda

Description:Ten Acres and Stirchley Co-operative Society [TASCoS]

The carton for bicarbonate of soda was purchased from the TASCoS chemist in Stirchley. Also known as baking soda, this key ingredient in bread making was a regular feature on shopping lists at a time when home baking was prevalent. The Ten Acres and Stirchley Co-operative Society (commonly called TASCoS) was well placed to meet this demand, with branches across south-west Birmingham. However, TASCoS was as much a political and social organisation as a retail body and it had a major presence in the area for almost a hundred years.

From its formation in 1875, TASCoS fitted the model of co-operative bodies as mutual, democratically controlled organisations that returned any surpluses generated to their members via dividends.^{<small>1</small>} As a core element of the labour movement (along with trades unions and working-class political parties) co-operatives were ranged against capitalist interests. They competed directly in retail markets for staple products and clashed with bodies such as the Grocers’ Protection Society.^{<small>2</small>} Locally, this manifested itself in efforts by the Grant Family to block TASCoS’s expansion into Cotteridge. The Grants were major landowners in the area, developing residential estates and the main shopping centre of Cotteridge. They refused to sell land to TASCoS. In 1899 the Society managed to by-pass this antipathy by purchasing an existing business on the corner of Rowheath and Midland Roads.^{<small>3</small>}

Within the co-operative movement, TASCoS was categorised as a distributive society.^{<small>4</small>} Within this remit, TASCoS showed initiative in many ways. In 1876 it pioneered half-day closing in south-west Birmingham for the benefit of its employees.^{<small>5</small>} The Society also promoted what would now be referred to as ‘fair trade’ policies. In 1906 the Education Committee staged a ‘Sweated Industries Exhibition’ to highlight differences between co-operative goods and those produced under conditions of sweated labour.^{<small>6</small>} During World War One, TASCoS, in conjunction with the movement generally, campaigned vigorously against war profiteering over foodstuffs.^{<small>7</small>} This tradition continued and, during World War Two, a stalwart of TASCoS, <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1800">Mary Cottrell</a>, represented the Co-operative Wholesale Society on the Government panel charged with ensuring effective food distribution and the prevention of profiteering.^{<small>8</small>} A nursery was established in property leased from Bournville Village Trust in 1927, described by a later commentator as ‘a very novel development’.^{<small>9</small>}

Cottrell, and her colleague at TASCoS, <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1789">Tom Hackett</a> were both Labour councillors in Birmingham City Council and were also great supporters of adult education for workers, a significant aspect of co-operative activity.^{<small>10</small>} However, another aspect should be considered: social activities. A distinctive <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1824">pavilion</a> designed by TASCoS’ architect Henry Simister was opened at its sports ground at Tunnel Lane, Lifford in 1938. Annual galas for children were organised in Cotteridge Park, attracting 9,500 children in 1936 and 12,000 a year later.^{<small>11</small>} Photographic competitions were organised for members, advertised through the Society’s magazine The Wheatsheaf.^{<small>12</small>} A <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1822">Choral Society</a> was founded in 1893 and performed at social, political and educational events for TASCoS and related bodies.

TASCoS was a distinctive feature of south-west Birmingham for many years, appearing in high streets and shopping parades from Weoley Castle to Yardley Wood and from Selly Oak to as far south as Bromsgrove. Loyalty to ‘the brand’ (and everything it represented) was such that TASCoS remained a trading name until 1971, even though all central functions had been taken over many years previously by Birmingham Co-operative Society.


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ G. Barnsby, Socialism in Birmingham and the Black Country 1850–1939 (1998), p.220
² G. Barnsby, p.176
³ H. Vickrage, Seventy Five Years of Co-operative Endeavour: The Story of TASCoS 1875–1950 (1950), p.8. For details of the Grant Family, see N. Rathbone, 'The Grant Estates and the Avenues’, Birmingham Historian (1993), no.9
⁴ Minutes of Birmingham District Co-operative Representation Council’ (1918-1927) [BA&H: B329.94249]
⁵ Vickrage, p.4
⁶ Vickrage, p.11. This exhibition was part of a series held in Birmingham and around the country to highlight the distress of (mainly) women workers in sweated industries. For further information, see Black Country Living Museum, Mary Reid MacArthur 1880–1921 (2010), p.3
⁷ An advertisement in the Birmingham Mail (10 December 1918) stated that the three local co-operative societies (Birmingham, Soho and TASCoS) had returned to the consumer about £600,000 during the war and that if the Government would investigate the profiteering fortunes that were made out of food during the war, it would ‘stagger the British consuming public and would give a unique testimonial to the productive and distributive movement of today’.
⁸ ‘Mrs M.E. Cottrell’, Birmingham Weekly Post (10 September 1948). Cottrell was the first woman board member of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and remains one of only a few to have been appointed. See Barnsby.
⁹ Barnsby, p.471
¹⁰ See <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1789">'Thomas Hackett'</a> and <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1927">'Workers' Education at the University'</a>, and Suburban Birmingham essay 'A Meeting of Minds? Adult Education in South-West Birmingham 1900–1940’. For political activity, Minutes of Birmingham District Co-operative Representation Council’ (1918-1927) [BA&H: B329.94249] provides useful background information.
¹¹ The Wheatsheaf (August 1936) p.xii; (August 1937) p.xii
¹² The Wheatsheaf (April 1935) p.ii; xvii</small></font>