The Co-op was the cornerstone of communities in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, with services impacting members’ lives from the cradle to the grave. But today, we are in danger of forgetting the impact of the co-operative movement, particularly in Chorley, Lancashire, England. Chorley had three very different co-operative societies between 1830 and 1880, all of which were relatively short-lived. This book tells the story of these societies in the context of the general development of co-operation and in the context of Chorley’s social, political, and industrial development. The author’s starting point for research was Frank Longton’s Fifty Years of Co-operation in Chorley, 1887-1937. This new research illustrates the difficulties in running different forms of co-operative businesses in the early decades of the movement.