Retail and services
The RACS ran not just food shops (a founding aim of the UK consumer co-operative movement being the provision of cheap unadulterated food) but also milk, bread and fuel deliveries, department stores,[4][5][6][7] a bookshop, jewellery department, shoe shops and chemists. Other services included removals, catering, undertakers (customers included Herbert Morrison), hairdressers, laundry, a travel agency, insurance and savings clubs. As was usual for such co-operative societies, members were paid a dividend in proportion to their spending with the society – at one point in embossed tin tokens, later by the quoting of a "Divi Number", towards the end by stamps.
Production and distribution
To support its retail activities the RACS established bakeries, bought farms and piggeries and built food processing factories. It owned stables and railway wagons, an abattoir, dairy, a frozen food plant, a fleet of coaches and two hotels on the Isle of Wight.
Social
From 1878 onwards 2.5% of the society's profits were spent on education. The RACS had an Education Department, ran classes and sports days, opened reading rooms, supported the Woodcraft Folk and the Co-operative Women's Guild, youth clubs at Falconwood and Coldharbour, a cricket club, orchestras and at one point two choirs conducted by (Sir) Michael Tippett. The society opened its first library in Woolwich in 1879 some 20 years before the local authority provided such a facility.
In July 1888, the society helped Frank Didden raise funds to establish Woolwich Polytechnic, supporting a sports meeting held in Charlton Park. The Polytechnic eventually opened in 1891,[8] also spawning day schools.
Housing
In 1900 the RACS became a large-scale housing developer by building the Bostall Estate on its farmland in Abbey Wood – Robert Mackay (chairman of the RACS) and its Works Department led by architect Frank Bethell constructing over a thousand homes between 1900 and 1914. In 1925 the RACS bought the 1250-home Royal Arsenal workers estate at Well Hall in Eltham from the Government, which it then renamed the Progress Estate.
Political
The RACS was always one of the more political co-operative societies. Its motto was "Each for All and All for Each"; it employed a Political Secretary, published magazines and newspapers (such as Comradeship and The Wheatsheaf)[9] and housed Basque refugees from the Spanish Civil War (see also Milk for Spain). The RACS supported the campaign for working-class political representation (see Labour Representation Committee) and the election of Will Crooks as MP for Woolwich.
In 1929, the RACS affiliated directly to the Labour Party, rather than to the Co-operative Party as was more usual for such societies. It also affiliated to the London Labour Party and various borough and local labour parties.[10] As well as the usual co-op dividend to its customer-members, the RACS also paid a "bonus to labour" – for instance paying the tradesmen building the Bostall Estate a halfpenny an hour above the trade union rate. Overall control of the RACS rested with a full-time Management Committee elected by society members under proportional representation.
The RACS directly sponsored Labour Party candidates in several Parliamentary elections, many of whom were successful.[11]
