The museum service has recently been given this token for 4 shillings (20 pence). It could only be spent in the shop of the Castleford and Allerton Mutual Industrial Society in Castleford. When it was made in the 1920s, working people spent about 4 shillings a week on food for one person.

The Society was a co-operative that helped people buy food at low prices in their own shop. The customers were members of the society and they shared in any profits. They received a dividend (the ‘divi’) on all the money they spent at the shop, in tokens like these. Like the loyalty points that supermarkets give out today, customers could only spend the tokens in the co-operative’s shop. Most people didn’t have bank accounts or savings accounts, so they also used tokens to save up for big purchases.

The co-operative movement began in 1844 with a shop in Rochdale set up by 28 men known as the Rochdale Pioneers. Other societies soon followed, setting up their own shops all over the country. Later the Co-operative Wholesale Society supplied the shops and also ran factories to make goods to sell in them.

In spite of its name, the Society never had a shop in Allerton Bywater. It only had one shop at 67 and 69 Carlton Street, Castleford, which was open by 1877. Another co-operative society, the Castleford Co-operative Industrial Society Limited, was nearby at 76 and 78 Carlton Street. This seems to have been a much bigger and more successful co-op. It grew to have six branches around the centre of Castleford in the 1920s and 1930s. The Castleford and Allerton Mutual Industrial Society went on until the mid 20th century, when it merged with the Co-operative Retail Society.