90 IV.—CONVERSION OF ORDINARY BUSINESSES INTO 
CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES. 
out of the Assurance and Pension Fund, a sum of £5, and if not 
less than ten years, £10. 
It would appear that the position occupied hy the workpeople 
of Wm. Thomson & Sons, Limited, is of such a nature that they 
identify themselves to a remarkable extent with the interests 
of the business. The very considerable sums contributed out of 
their wages by the workpeople in order that the shareholders 
should not receive less than their usual return of 5 per cent, have 
already been mentioned. As further exemplifying the feelings 
entertained by the workpeople it may be observed that, as was 
reported in 1890, one of the workmen having invented a great 
improvement in weaving, instead of patenting it for his. own 
benefit, presented his invention to the Society. 
From the point of view of the management, the fact that the 
workpeople are directly interested in the business is found to 
result in their exhibiting increased application and avoiding 
waste; it also makes the management much less costly, because, 
as Mr. Thomson has said, “ each man and woman becomes his 
or her own manager.” At the same time the services rendered 
by Mr. Thomson as head of the business are so highly appreciated 
that his original salary of £500 a year was, within a few years 
after the formation of the Society, increased by the Committee to 
a very considerable extent. In 1891 Mr. Thomson informed the 
annual meeting that he was prepared to have the rule requiring 
a five-sixths majority before he could be removed from the 
management modified so that a smaller proportion would be 
required in order to depose him; but “ it was unanimously 
proposed not to alter the system, because, as it was then, they 
were perfectly satisfied with it.” Mr. Thomson also offered to 
give up the autocratic authority reserved to him as manager by 
the rules; but, although this offer was repeated in 1892 and 
again in 1893, on no occasion was the desire expressed that his 
position should be altered. 
BROWNFIELD’S GUILD POTTERY SOCIETY, LTD. 
The second of the three cases in which an ordinary business has 
been turned into a Co-operative Society is that of Brownfield’s 
Guild Pottery Society, Limited. Mr. Arthur Brownfield, the 
owner of the old-established pottery works of Messrs. William 
Brownfield and Sons, at Cobridge, in Staffordshire, determined, in 
consequence of the lock-out which took place in the pottery in 
dustry in 1891, but in which his firm was in no way concerned, 
to place this undertaking upon a new footing by transferring it 
to a Co-operative Society, which was registered under the Indus 
trial and Provident Societies Act in October, 1892, and commenced 
to manufacture in January, 1893. The following account of the 
start of the Society, reprinted from the Report on Profit-sharing 
published by the Board of Trade in 1894 (C.—7458), shows the 
history of this experiment up to that date : — 
The share in the assets of the late firm, which belonged to Mr. Arthur 
Brownfield, the founder of the society, is represented by £6,000 deferred 
stock carrying interest at 5 per cent., which “ shall not confer a right to 
demand payment of the principal from the society so long as any claim