Leeds Co-operative Society

The Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society, known as the Leeds Co-op, was a British independent co-operative society founded in 1847 as a Co-operative Flour Mill Society by workers at a flax mill who pooled their resources, with draper John Holmes among its founders. Operating from The People's Mill, it grew from flour milling into food and non-food retail and by the 1860s was the country's largest co-operative society; by 2006 it ran twenty-one food supermarkets, seventeen travel agencies, eighteen funeral homes and six optical units across West Yorkshire. In December 2006 its members voted to merge with United Co-operatives, and the Leeds society ceded its assets in mid-January 2007, with the combined organization merging into the Co-operative Group later that year.