At an Extraordinary General Meeting on 13 May 2026, the members of the Co-operative College voted to dissolve the organisation. This is a sad day not only for the College - the demise of an institution that has straddled the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and been associated with many of the stalwarts of the UK co-operative movement.
The College was established in 1919 aiming to provide not only technical training but also leadership development; skilled managers working within the ethos of co-operativism and the co-operative movement. Developing from the auspices of the Co-operative Union, the College also provided specialist training to students across the British empire with students a range of British colonies: India, Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa, British Guiana and Ceylon (Moulton, 2021, p. 425).
In 1944, The College purchased Stanford Hall in Leicestershire where it celebrated its 50th birthday (Lazell,2020), before moving back to its old home at Holyoake House in 2000. Stanford Hall was sold in 2001. The following years saw the College expand is educational offerings and its international work was re-developed but these years also brough financial challenges culminating with funding being lost from the Co-operative Group in 2019. Significant changes were made to the staffing and structure of the College in 2020, with several initiatives - including the development of a co-operative university - being shelved (Hadfield, 2021).
Despite various options and efforts to create a sustainable business model for the College, including a proposed partnership with Co-operatives UK, and an unstaffed version of the College, and further redundancies (Co-operative College, 2026; Thomasen, 2006), the Board decided that voluntary wind-up and dissolution was the best option.
Talking to Rebecca Harvey (Co-op News, 2026), Chris Jardine, chair of the Co-op College stated:
The decision to bring this resolution to our members was not taken lightly and follows new financial and governance considerations identified as we developed our previously proposed non-staffed model... [the proposal is] the best option available to maximise our funds for charitable impact and for achieving our charitable objectives, while ensuring full compliance with our regulatory requirements.
The College is now working to creating a legacy by deploying its remaining funds into a grant giving programme and plan to work with The Co-op Foundation to help achieve this if approval by both charitable boards is given. In addition, College learning materials will be made available via The Open University, and materials covering the history of the College will be preserved through a funded project with the Co-operative Heritage Trust (Toomer-McAlpine, 2026).
You can visit the Co-operative College website for more information and updates
Click to read background information to the EGM motion
References
Hadfield, M. (2021, June 3). A chequered past: What haas happened to the Co-operative Colleg. Co-operative News. https://www.thenews.coop/a-chequered-past-what-has-happened-to-the-co-op-college/
Harvey, R. (2026, May 5). Co-op College announces meeting to vote in winding up. Co-op News. https://www.thenews.coop/co-op-college-announces-meeting-to-vote-on-winding-up/
Lazell, D. (2020). Sir Julian Cahn at Stanford Hall and a view from the Co-operative College (2nd edn).. Heart of Albion. First published 1993. https://hoap.co.uk/stanford_hall.pdf
Moulton, M. (2021). Co-opting the cooperative movement? Development, decolonization, and the power of expertise at the Co-operative College, 1920s–1960s. Journal of Global History, 17(3), 418-437. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022821000279
Thomasen, J. (2026). Future College information pack. Co-operative College. www.co-op.ac.uk
Toomer-McAlpine, A. (2026, May 13). Cataloguing the long legacy of the UK’s Co-op College. Co-op News. https://www.thenews.coop/cataloguing-the-long-legacy-of-the-uks-co-op-college/
