On December 22, 1844, a co-operative store on Toad Lane in Rochdale, the United Kingdom, was opened by a small but determined group. It was hardly an impressive event. Their meager supplies consisted of flour, sugar, tea and not much else. At the time, no-one predicted that this new system would, in 50 years, provide a quarter of the British population with consumer goods. No-one would have thought—not even the “Pioneers” themselves—that the principles they developed to govern their store would be replicated and built upon by an international movement that now spans the world and, according to UN estimates, affects the lives of over two billion people.

On December 22, 2004, the British movement celebrated the store’s160th anniversary and the achievement of the Pioneers. The store, now a carefully preserved museum, hosted over 100 celebrants invited by the Co-operative College. They were served fair trade food and beverages, keeping in line with the Pioneers’ preoccupation with unadulterated food and intelligent consumption. As it happens, fair trade food is also a major initiative within the British consumer movement.

Following the reception, the crowd heard addresses by Stephen Yeo, the distinguished British historian of the working class (and former Chair of the College’s Board), and Ian MacPherson, who had been invited to the event by the College.

Stephen Yeo re-examined the historical roots of the Rochdale experiment, stressing its breadth of vision and deep intellectual traditions. Ian MacPherson explored the story of the Pioneers as “myth” in the sense of an underlying conception of reality that can both energize and empower those who believe in it. He stressed the need, however, for rooting such concepts in the realities of their time and to avoid the temptation to claim too much from them. Doing so can dull the fundamental message and undervalue the importance of other “pioneers”, explained MacPherson. In a sense, lesser but deeper understandings can be more powerful than broad but shallow claims.