1795The "anti-mill" flour mill in Hull, one of several early English co-operative ventures, is set up by local people angry at the high prices charged by commercial millers. It carries on operating for a century. Photograph: National Co-operative Archive/www.archive.coop1831The heyday of the Owenite co-operative movement in Britain sees the first significant national co-operative congress (held in Manchester, where else?) as well as discussions about a national wholesale operation. Several hundred local co-op societies are established around this time, though many are shortlived. Robert Owen, the mill owner from 1800-1825 at New Lanark on the river Clyde (now a Unesco heritage site), is the figurehead of what becomes a strongly working-class movement. (Owen's statue is to be found today beside the Co-op Bank head office in Manchester.)