STIRLINGSHIRE AND HILLFOOTS SOCIETIES.
Early in the nineteenth century Co-operation found a home in Stirlingshire. In the thirtieth year of the century the Bannockburn Co-operative Society came into being as the result of a lecture on “Co-operation,” which was given by Mr William Buchanan, a resident medical man. So impressed were members of his audience with what they had heard that a committee was formed immediately to draft rules and take the steps necessary for the formation of a society. The rules were agreed to at a meeting which was held on 27th November 1830. Bannockburn Society still exists and flourishes to-day, after an unbroken career of eighty-nine years.
About the same time—it may have been earlier or a little later, for no information about its beginning can be found—a baking society was formed in Bannockburn, and continued to flourish for a number of years. Of the fact that the members of the other Bannockburn Society were interested in the doings of the baking society evidence is given in a minute of that society in the early ’thirties, in which it is noted that the baking society had agreed to supply Alva Society with bread. Incidentally, this entry would seem to fix a period at which the Alva Baking Society was not in existence. The Bannockburn Baking Society was amalgamated with the Bannockburn Society in 1846.
In the year 1847 one of the most flourishing baking societies in the country came into existence, for on the 23rd June in that year the Bainsford and Grahamston Baking Society was formed. Notwithstanding that general societies have grown up all round the town of Falkirk, this society continues to maintain a separate and flourishing existence, its latest balance-sheet showing a membership of 4,733 and an average output of 371 sacks per week.
Other baking societies were formed in the same district. Quite recently one of these, Stenhousemuir Baking Society, was amalgamated with the Stenhousemuir Equitable Society, after a separate existence of many years. Another baking society was situated in the little village of Carronshore. In the Hillfoots district some time in the late ’forties baking societies came into existence at Alva and Tillicoultry. The baking society at Tillicoultry amalgamated with the Tillicoultry Society in 1905, and the Alva Society with the Alva Bazaar Society a few years later.