Pears Canteen 2 pence token

[ZYV]

Prass, 3.59 g, 22.25 mm.

Please, tell:
1. Who & where?
2. When?
3. How it was used?

[ZYV]

Maker: Neal.   

So we have a Market tally? 

[malj1]

No not market this time, although most of Neal's work did involve the markets he did make many other tokens too.

A & F Pears of 71-5 New Oxford Street, London. They are soap makers and these would have been used in their canteen along with several other values of tokens. Many British businesses had canteens for their workers these originated mainly due to WW2 and food rationing.

See A & F Pears

Also Wikipedia

Many French 10c coins circulated in Britain as pennies during the late 19th century, many of these had PEARS SOAP countermarked on them along with several other famous names, see here

" ....in 1884 the company stamped 250,000 continental bronze coins, mostly French five and ten centimes, and put them into circulation in Britain. This part of their advertising campaign was so extensive that Pears Soap became a very well known public pest."

[Figleaf]

Love that cartoon! Now, what is the connection between soap and food? Factory canteen?

Peter

[malj1]

Yes the these would have been used in the factory canteen. I think I have some other values.

[ZYV]

Dear malj1, thank You for full & interesting answer!

Yes the these would have been used in the factory canteen.

So,
workers received part of their wages in these tokens?

[Figleaf]

Wages are part of a labour contract and called primary benefits. Secondary benefits are a part of the contract also. Usual secondary benefits are (in order of cost) pension benefits, paid holidays, medical coverage and transportation to and from the job, but they may also include subsidised or free company clothes and food. In other words, the tokens (even when free or subsidised) would not be counted as wages but as wage cost, a social contribution from employers to maintain a strong and healthy workforce.

Peter

[ZYV]

Dear Peter, thank You for the answer!

....a social contribution from employers to maintain a strong and healthy workforce.

May be in deep theory this statement is correct, but in reality I doubt it is so.

[malj1]

We are talking of fifty or more years ago when things were different in Britain [perhaps not in Ukraine] Take Cadbury's for instance, he built a whole town called Bourneville for his employees to live in and provided churches, libraries, museums etc there for his work-people. Another too was Lord Lever with his sunlight soap business at Port Sunlight.

However, many of these canteen tokens were purchased from the works cashier prior to the meal break to buy food and drink from the works canteen thus avoiding the canteen staff having to handle money, give change etc.

Cadbury's I know handed out tokens to people working overtime so they could get a meal before working on. Somewhat like meal vouchers that are handed out today.

[ZYV]

In Russian Empire, where similar tokens were minted, things were really different
(http://kubera.narod.ru/tunkel/main.htm)
Excuse me for text in Russian:
"Рабочие и служащие часть заработка получали подобными бонами и "отоваривали" их в лавках, принадлежащим фирмам. Сибирский золотопромышленник Н.Базилевский, выпустивший во второй половине XIX века собственные деньги" на 10-копеечной марке боне, так написал :"Марки эти выдаются вместо наличных денег только служащим в нашей компании и получают обратно от них тоже как наличные деньги за съестные припасы и товарные вещи, забираемые ими из промысловых магазинов или запасов".
Организованная борьба рабочих, в особенности в период перед революцией 1905 года, заставила капиталистов избегать выпуска бон от своего имени. Владельцы фабрик и заводов пошли на ухищрения и начали организовывать при своих предприятиях различного рода общества потребителей и кооперативные товарищества с широкой сетью лавок и магазинов, от имени которых и выпускались боны.
Старый сормовский рабочий М.И.Князев, вспоминая то время, писал: "До 1896 года зарплату выдавали только два раза в год. Вскоре порядок был изменен, и рабочие стали получать деньги ежемесячно. Однако, выплаты зарплаты систематически задерживали. В таких случаях рабочие, сами того не осознавая, фактически беспроцентно ссужали владельцам заводов значительную часть своей зарплаты. Вместо денег с рабочими расплачивались марками, так называемыми фофанами (каждый стоимостью 25-30 копеек). По ним можно брать продукты и товары в фабричной лавке, которая существовала в Сормове под вывеской "Общества потребителей". Цены в лавке "Общества потребителей" были намного выше, чем в магазинах, и рабочие справедливо называли их "потребиловкой". На "фофаны" сормовские рабочие могли получать продукцию также и в частных лавках Сормова (купцов Попова, Котова, Тютина), с которыми у заводоуправления была договоренность".

[Figleaf]

"Workers and employees of the earnings received similar bonuses to spend them in the firm-owned shops. Siberian gold mines owner N.Bazilevsky, who issued his own money - a 10 kopeck coupon - in the second half of the XIX century wrote: "These stamps are issued instead of cash to employees in our company and to get back from them, as cash for food and commodities, bought by them from fishing shops or stores. "

The organized struggle of the workers, especially in the period before the revolution of 1905, forced the capitalists to stop issuing coupons. Owners of factories and plants have continued tricks and began to organize at its plants various kinds of consumer societies and cooperative partnerships with a wide network of shops and stores, on whose behalf they issued bonds.

Old M.I. Knyazev a Sormovo worker, remembering the time, wrote: "Up to 1896 wages were given only twice a year. Soon after the order was changed and the workers began to receive money every month. However, part of salaries were systematically withheld. In such cases, workers, without realizing it, in fact, lent a significant portion of his salary interest free to the owner of the plant. Instead of money the workers were paid stamps, so-called Fofanov (each worth 25-30 kopecks). With them you could buy goods and products in the factory shop, which existed in Sormovo under the name of "Company customers." Prices in the "Company customers" shops were much higher than in stores, and the workers rightly called them "potrebilovkoy." The "Fofana" Sormovo workers could also buy in private shops in Sormovo (merchants Popov Kotova, Tyutin), with which the plant had an agreement."

Thank you, ZYV! This is an earlier system, called trucking. It was widely denounced and soon (around 1850) forbidden in Western Europe. Shamefully, it lived on in European colonies, largely in agriculture. Many African factory and plantation tokens, Asian plantation tokens and South American hacienda tokens attest to forced shopping. The last of the breed may be the Cocos-Keeling tokens. The family running these islands in a feudal way were accused of practically running a slavery operation and removed from the islands by an Australian court.

The situation in Britain had changed under the influence of a wave of revolutions in Western Europe around 1830, 1845 and 1870. This created a class of "enlightened employers", that showed that by not exploiting the labour force, production could be increased enough to offset the extra cost. Cadbury is just one example. It is no coincidence that this group of such enlightened merchants (the Wedgewood family was quite active here) were the driving force behind the abolition of slavery, which explains the well-made Birmingham tokens urging against slavery (AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?).

Similarly, in a number of Western European countries, especially Britain, France, Switzerland and Belgium, workers co-ops (real ones, not the fake trucking operations from your quotes) helped poor workers save money in banks, eat a balanced diet, agitated against alcohol and organised non-profit shops. This put so much pressure on prices in UK non co-op shops that they also issued "loyalty tokens" for discounts. In France, co-ops still exist in army circles and in wine production. In Switzerland, the largest shop chain is a co-op. In Belgium, the co-op disappeared, as it became a tool in the language war. In Britain, the co-op shops got bureaucratised and generally lost out against the regular shops.

It is exactly these developments that split the early communist movement in Western Europe in a radical part and a moderate, socialist part. The radical parts have long disappeared, but there are active, mainstream socialist parties in most Western European countries.

Peter

[ZYV]

Such "enlightened employees" are absent as class in Ukraine in 2015, by the way.

Dear Peter, thank You for very interesting story!

[malj1]

" ....in 1884 the company stamped 250,000 continental bronze coins, mostly French five and ten centimes, and put them into circulation in Britain. This part of their advertising campaign was so extensive that Pears Soap became a very well known public pest."

Such as this nice one.

[malj1]

A pears canteen threeha'pence Aluminium 22.4mm

[Figleaf]

For a trade token, the design of the denomination side is quite creative and fun.

BTW, Pears' soap, but Pears Canteen.

Peter