The Customs and Traditions of Wales by Trefor M. Owen

Author:Trefor M. Owen [Owen, Trefor M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780708311189
Goodreads: 3380445
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 1991-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Clubs

Apart from mutual aid in building the tÅ· unnos, there are one or two other minor instances of the kind of cooperation which manifested itself above all in the formation of friendly societies. Book clubs, for example were founded in many Welsh towns, such as Cowbridge, Pembroke, Denbigh and Holyhead, as a reading public emerged. Sometimes a more sophisticated form of cooperation was promoted for purely commercial reasons by entrepreneurial craftsmen. The well-known clockmaker, Samuel Roberts of Llanfair Caereinion, Montgomeryshire, for example, established a clock club in the 1770s to promote the sale of his long-case clocks. The twenty members apparently met every month and paid a regular subscription of two shillings, each meeting raising a sum sufficient to buy a clock. The recipient of the clocks at each of these meetings was probably decided by lottery, and every member could be certain that he would receive his clock within two years. Such clubs were criticized, however, because poor people, who had been persuaded to join but had failed to keep up their regular payments, had been known to forfeit the contributions they had already made, as well as the clocks, which were confiscated. However, in an age of incipient commercialism, the clock clubs, as Dr W. T. R. Pryce suggests, reflected the same spirit and purpose as were to be found in the early building societies.

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