ABSTRACT
[Catherine Webb (1859–1947) was the daughter of a journeyman coppersmith from London, who had worked his way up to become manager of the Battersea and Wand-sworth Co-operative Society and a director of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. An indefatigable worker for the cause, she founded the Battersea branch of the Women’s Co-operative Guild, served on the central board of the Co-operative Union from 1895–1902, spoke and published widely on women’s issues and edited the “Women’s Corner” of the Co-operative News for a time. [Margaret Llewelyn Davies, The Women’s Co-operative Guild. 1883–1904 (Kirkby: WCG, 1904), 33–34] She had the highest aspirations for the movement, reminding her listeners to lay “firm hold of the central idea of ‘community’”, even when discussing the most mundane topics, such as organisation. [Catherine Webb, The Machinery of the Co-operative Movement (Manchester: Co-operative Union, 1896), 15] The article reproduced below is from the movement’s illustrated monthly magazine. It demonstrates both an awareness of the legacy of Owenism and determined belief in the continuing relevance of utopianism. Against a contemporary background of renewed interest in “the community idea”, Webb discusses the work of the Owenite feminist Mary Hennell, especially Hen-nell’s Social Systems and Communities that was published separately in 1844. She summarises Hennell’s overview of the history of common ownership since earliest times, attempting to pull out the connecting thread between earlier experiments and present practice. This historical recovery is vital, Webb argues, if co-operation is to develop “from a ‘movement’ to a ‘commonwealth’”. Although common ownership of the land and the establishment of communities like Queenwood have been central to this history, Webb maintains that there is now no other option but to build an alternative in the world as it is. “It seems to me that today, in the building up of a co-operative community”, she writes, “we are not called upon to separate ourselves wholly from the social common life of the people. Indeed we cannot if we would”.]
