ABSTRACT
In one of her earliest WCG Annual Reports, in 1894, Margaret Llewelyn Davies tentatively outlined her vision of its future development. They were often asked, she wrote, ‘what does a branch do?’ Her response came in two parts. Firstly, she made plain that while loyal to Co-operation, the Guild had a higher purpose than to serve its trading interests: ‘we deprecate being judged merely by the material side of the help we give. We believe that such results naturally follow from the wider view of the movement that it is our desire to inculcate.’ She then came to her main point: ‘But we aspire to accomplish work which will not show itself in tangible form at the present moment. If we have helped to train women’s minds (the need and desire for which is touchingly expressed to us by our members), developing in them a belief in the new social faith; and if we have helped to give women a field of action in which to carry out this faith, then the harvest of the seeds we are sowing will be reaped by future generations.’ 1
