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Family History Documents and Artefacts => FH Documents and Artefacts => Topic started by: Isabel H on Sunday 16 September 18 15:11 BST (UK)
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I've been trying without success to identify this badge. It is 1¼" in diameter, with my late mother's maiden name engraved on the back, so probably dates from about 1930-1946.
Does anyone know what it is, please?
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Hi
clutching at straws . . . . .
"A" Wholesale Society where "A" is the town/area/region.
Where was her home area?
Ray
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If we're doing guessing, isn't [A...] Women's Society hugely more likely than a wholesale society? I've never heard of a wholesale society other than the Co-op which only had other Co-ops as members until the 1990s.
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"The Co-op" C W S Ltd was/is an amalgamation of co-operative societies.
Anglia Regional Co-operative Society (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglia_Regional_Co-operative_Society) being one.
So, was there an "AWS" of some kind?
Or even was AWS = Anglia Wholesale Society?
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Thank you both for your interest, Ray and John.
She was from Annfield Plain, Co. Durham, went to school in that area, college in Glasgow in the 1930s, and worked for the NAAFI during the war, mostly in the North of Scotland.
My estimated date is from when she was about 10 yrs old to when she married.
If it is from the Durham area, would a young girl have been likely to have had a Wholesale Society badge with her name on the back?
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Thank you both for giving my thoughts a nudge in the direction of something in Mum's home area. :) I had a Eureka moment while cooking dinner and realised that AWS is Alderman Wood School. I am kicking myself for not thinking of it before! ::)
There's a similar badge on the website of the Tanfield Association. It says 1940s, but actually the one I have must be from the 1930s.
Isabel
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Isabel, very glad you have solved your query. Let me be cheeky and educate [Ray] a little about the Co-op.
The Co-operative Wholesale Society was set up by all the co-ops that we're familiar with. Its members were the local/regional ('Retail') co-ops, not individuals, and its purpose was to harness the buying power of co-ops all over the country to buy produce to seel in their (retail) shops. That is basically what 'wholesale' is. It was CWS that owned the rights to the coop logo, slogans like 'caring sharing co-op', So as Isabel says, there would be no reason for a girl to have an object from a wholesale society. And actually, to have more than one wholesale society would thwart the objective of maximizing the buying power.
Ok so in much more recent times the local societies started merging into regional and then national ones, and some of those merged into CWS so that it was no longer a purely wholesale entity. And more recently CWS recognized that and changed its name to The Co-operative Group.
Why is there a Stockport Street in Stockport? Perhaps I will ask that on a new topic and see what people's guesses are. In the mean time we now know that AWS is (in this context at least) Alderman Wood School.
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Hi
I'm quite happy to go with the history of CWS Ltd as per the published history.
And, of retail developing wholesale connections.
I did not say that she wore the badge as a young girl.
" from 10 years to marriage " was a comment.
The badge may have been (part of) a staff badge for her part-time job whilst in college, f-a-i-k?
Similar to current practice in my local Co-op.
I was just encouraging people to think in a wider sense, which seems to have been successful.