This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United Kingdom. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release, between 2008 and 2013, of the Ministry of Defence's UFO sighting reports by the National Archives. In recent years, there have been many sightings of groups of slowly moving lights in the night sky, which can be easily explained as Chinese lanterns. Undertaken between 1997 and 2000, Project Condign concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the UK could be attributed to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena.

12th century
 1113: Religious pilgrims in South West England reported seeing a glowing fire-belching "dragon" emerge from the sea, flying into the air, and disappearing into the sky.

13th century
 January 1254: In St. Albans, England, a scribe wrote of a glowing floating light, thus recorded it, "...in serene sky and clear air, with stars shining and the Moon eight days old, there suddenly appeared in the sky a kind of large ship elegantly shaped, well equipped and of marvellous colour."
1290: Friars of Byland Abbey, described of "a flat, round shining silvery object" flying overhead of them. However, this report is a hoax perpetrated by two teenagers in the 1950s.

20th century

1940s
 February 1942: A woman named Eileen Arnold was walking down Cheltenham High Street when she suddenly experienced an altered state of consciousness as she became "tuned into another reality". She became aware of a large oval shape moving slowly above the rooftops. She stated that it radiated light from holes in its side and had quills which detached one by one, also emitting light. Following the encounter, Eileen believed she had numerous psychic experiences.
 September 1942: Albert Lancaster believed he was abducted by aliens while working as a guard at a radar site near Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland. He claimed to have a sudden urge to go outside, followed by a "strange impulse to look at the sky." He claims he saw a glowing light surrounded by dark mist and, assuming it to be a German weapon, went to raise the alarm before being struck by a beam of light from the cloud, followed by a floating sensation, then becoming aware he was back at his post. After this experience, he believed he had psychic powers for a period of time.
 5 August 1944: According to records released on 5 August 2010, British wartime PM Winston Churchill banned the reporting, for fifty years, of an alleged UFO incident because of fears it could create mass panic. Reports given to Churchill claimed the incident involved a Royal Air Force (RAF) reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany. Allegedly, when flying over or near the English coastline, the aircraft was suddenly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched its course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing. The plane's crew were reported to have photographed the object, which they said had "hovered noiselessly" near the aircraft, before moving off. According to the documents, details of the cover-up emerged when a man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident. He described how his grandfather, who served with the RAF in the Second World War, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter. The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports, letters, and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by Members of the UK Parliament. They are available to download for free for a month from The National Archives website.

1950s
 1 June 1950: A Gloster Meteor at RAF Tangmere passes a flying saucer lit up with lights, described as "Britain's first flying saucer". The object was reported to be "shining, revolving, and disc-like" at 20,000 ft at 14:30, flying eastwards over the Portsmouth area. RAF Tangmere asked the radar station at RAF Wartling in Sussex if it had seen the object, and it had on its PPI screen. It led to the setting up of the Flying Saucer Working Party.
 14 August 1950: A 50 ft-diameter disc UFO is seen over the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at 11:27 by an experienced pilot F/Lt Hubbard. He claimed to see another similar object on 5 September 1950 at 16:09.
 26 August 1950: In the early hours of the morning a 20-year-old woman was walking back to her home in the village of Stanton Drew, Somerset from a party when she decided to take a shortcut through a field near to the stone circles where upon she heard a buzzing sound, she turned to her left and noticed a bright saucer-shaped object hovering over the next field. A door on the craft began to open and she screamed, started to run and did not stop until she got home.
 14–25 September 1952: Operation Mainbrace. On 19 September at 10:53, a silver disc-shaped object followed a Gloster Meteor returning to RAF Topcliffe and was seen by observers on the ground. It rotated whilst hovering. It then travelled towards the west at high speed. On 21 September, six RAF planes followed a spherical object over the North Sea. It followed one of the planes back to the base. It was the front-page headline on 20 September 1952 on the Yorkshire Evening Press and on 21 September 1952 on the Sunday Dispatch., and was reported by 31-year-old Shackleton pilot Flt Lt John Kilburn of 269 Squadron, from Thornhill, Cumberland
 21 October 1952: Two RAF pilots in a Gloster Meteor saw three disc-shaped objects at 35,000 ft in the Little Rissington UFO incident.
 9 October 1953: Two BEA pilots flying from London to Paris see a saucer object over the English Channel for thirty minutes in a Airspeed Ambassador (Elizabethan); former RAF pilot Captain Peter Fletcher, of Putney, had taken off at 09:00 from London Airport
 3 November 1953: Terry Johnson and Geoffrey Smythe in an RAF de Havilland Vampire saw a UFO over RAF West Malling.
 29 June 1954: A BOAC pilot in a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser sees seven UFOs when travelling back from New York to London over the North Atlantic; in G-ALSC Boeing 377-10-28 (sold to Transocean Air Lines in January 1959) RMA Centaurus; the aircraft left New York Idlewild Airport at 17:03 on Flight 510-196 heading for refuelling at CFB Goose Bay, where the pilot saw seven UFOs four hours later near Newfoundland for eighteen minutes at 19,000 ft from 01:05 GMT to 01:23 GMT; Captain James Howard, aged 33 from Bristol, was a former RAF Bomber Command Squadron Leader on his 265th crossing of the Atlantic, and he was interviewed on 3 July 1954 for the BBC In Town Tonight with air hostess 28-year-old Daphne Webster of Hounslow, and First Officer Lee Boyd, the co-pilot, who flew in the Pathfinder Force in World War II
 14 October 1954: F/Lt James Salandin of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, flying in a No. 604 Squadron RAF Gloster Meteor F8 from RAF North Weald, narrowly missed two UFOs over Southend-on-Sea at around 16:30 at 16,000 ft. The objects were circular with one being coloured silver and the other gold. He narrowly avoided having a head-on collision with the silver object.
 17 July 1955 at noon: on King Harold's Way in Bexleyheath in the London Borough of Bexley a 30-foot-wide saucer-shaped object was seen to hover a few feet above a street in broad daylight by Margaret Fry and her doctor on a very hot cloudless day. Car engines nearby to the object stalled. It was seen by around thirty people and made a humming noise and landed at the junction of Ashbourne Road and Whitfield Road. It hovered over Bedonwell Primary School (now Bedonwell Junior School) for around one minute. It finally shot off into the sky. Another UFO had landed a few streets away at the same time. A similar object had been seen in Bexleyheath in 1952.
 13 August 1956: Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident – 12 to 15 objects were picked up by USAF radar over East Anglia at 12:00. One object was tracked at more than 4,000 mph by USAF GCA radar at RAF Bentwaters. The objects sometimes travelled in formation, then converged to form a larger object and performed sharp turns. One object was tracked for 26 miles (41.8 kilometres) which then hovered for five minutes then flew off. One object at 22:00 was tracked at 12,000 mph. RAF de Havilland Venoms from RAF Waterbeach had sightings of the objects.
 22 September 1956: a large, spherical glass-like 80-foot-diameter object was seen over the Cleethorpes coast for over an hour and also seen on radar from RAF Manby at 15:00. RAF planes approached the object and it flew off.

 4 April 1957: West Freugh incident – a large object was seen on radar at RAF West Freugh near Stranraer at 50,000 ft which was stationary for 10 minutes over the Irish Sea. It moved vertically to 70,000 ft and was also tracked by radar at Ardwell. The object made an "impossible" sharp turn and was described as being as large as a ship, bigger than a normal aircraft.
 20 May 1957: Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter – a USAF F-86D Sabre based at RAF Manston intercepted an object over East Anglia.
 21 November 1957: Silpho Moor UFO - a small 18in saucer shaped container was discovered containing copper pages with messages in glyphs. The remains were dicovered in a science museum 60 years later.

1960s
 From late spring (19 May) to early summer 1965: Many sightings of UFOs were seen in the Warminster area. Cley Hill, near to the town, has since been a place for frequent sightings.

 28 April 1967: For approximately one hour around 12:00, a dome-shaped object was sighted at about 1,600 ft over Brixham in Devon. A door was seen in the side of the object and it had been spotted by the HM Coastguard station at Berry Head. There were 362 UFO sightings in 1967; there had only been 95 in 1966.
 1967: Clapham Wood in West Sussex experienced a rash of UFO sightings and unexplained events during the 1960s and continuing into the 1970s.
 24 October 1967: "Devon Flying Cross UFO" – At 4:00, PCs Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott were driving from Holsworthy to Hatherleigh along the A3072. They saw a bright object in the shape of a cross at tree-top height about 40 metres away. They followed the "pulsating" object for about fifteen minutes along the road at speeds of up to 80 mph. The object was described as being star-spangled like "looking through wet glass". It was joined by a second object at 4:23. A motorist, Mr Christopher Garner of Hatherleigh, had also seen it and thought he was having a nightmare. The object disappeared at around 5:00, having been pursued for fourteen miles. It was attributed to the planet Venus, as were other similar sightings that same month.
 25 October 1967: "Sussex Flying Cross" – Policemen in five police cars across East Sussex reported a bright flying cross in the early hours, with the first sighting at 4:45 at Halland. The other sightings were a few minutes later, and also seen in Wales.
 26 October 1967: 54-year-old Mr Angus Brooks, a former BOAC administrator from Owermoigne in Dorset, was walking at 11:25 on Moigns Down near Holworth, close to the Dorset coast with his two dogs in a force 8 gale and took shelter in a hollow. He then saw a circular translucent craft with a "girder" at the front and three pointing to the rear. The "girders" rearranged to form a cross shape around the central 25 ft-diameter disc and then began to spin. Twenty-two minutes later, the "girders" returned to their original position and the craft sped off in a northeast direction.

1970s
 8 September 1970: Captain William Schaffner intercepted an unknown object over the North Sea. His BAC Lightning aircraft was later retrieved from the sea.
 1971: It is claimed that unidentified silent craft were regularly seen by two school children near the coastal village of Muchalls, Scotland, (but not in the village itself) from 1971 onwards. These events are alleged to have reoccurred night after night for many years, and are reputed to have continued until at least 1991 when some aspects of the apparitions were also filmed in the area.

 16 October 1973: It is alleged that Gabriella Versacci was taken on board an alien space ship near a small village in Somerset, England. She was physically inspected after being strapped to an examination table.
 23 January 1974: A UFO allegedly crashed on the Berwyn Mountains in Wales. The event coincided with an earthquake.
 June 1976: An official British Airways film taken during one of Concorde's flights over southern England depicts a white light moving around the fuselage of the aircraft. A later analysis of the film, presented in a UFO documentary, indicated that the light was an artifact of the video camera.
 4 February 1977: A cigar-shaped craft is alleged to have landed next to Broad Haven Primary School and witnessed by 14 school children who saw a silver creature. The headteacher Ralph Llewellyn interviewed fifteen children on Monday 7 February 1977, who all make similar drawings
 Wednesday 16 February 1977: at Rhosybol in Anlesey in north Wales, nine children at the primary school see a mysterious object, and make similar drawings
 August 1977: A silver humanoid figure next to a spacecraft was seen in the middle of the road junction near Barnston, Merseyside.
 22 November 1978: At 17:15, Elsie Oakensen of Church Stowe, Northamptonshire, was driving southwards down the A5 from Weedon Bec towards her home. She saw two bright lights, one green and one red, and could make out a dumbbell-shaped object. Turning off the A5 to her village, her recently serviced car cut out twice. She then noticed the sky was black and a brilliant white beam of light was shining on the road ahead, then the sky returned to its normal colour. After the experience, Elsie could not account for 15 minutes of her time.
 9 November 1979: Bob Taylor, a forestry worker, had an alleged encounter with a UFO in a clearing on Dechmont Law in Livingston, West Lothian. He claimed that the UFO had dragged him along the ground. This is considered to be one of the most significant close encounters in Scotland.

1980s
 29 November 1980 at 5:00: police officer Alan Godfrey claims to have been abducted by an alien space craft in Todmorden in West Yorkshire. A strange luminescent object had been spotted by other local police officers at the same time.
 December 1980: A series of reported sightings of unexplained lights and objects in the sky, and the alleged landing of an extraterrestrial spacecraft occurred at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England on 26 December. It is perhaps the most famous UFO event to have happened in Britain, ranking amongst the best-known UFO events worldwide.
 12 August 1983: 77-year-old Alfred Burtoo was quietly fishing on the Basingstoke Canal when a UFO landed nearby in Aldershot. Two humanoid beings beckoned him onto their disc-shaped vehicle and he was medically examined by English-speaking creatures. He was "rejected" by the creatures because he was "too old".
 26 April 1984: Several people reported a UFO over Stanmore in north-west London, and was seen by two police officers.
 13 October 1984: Several people see a flying saucer over Waterloo Bridge in London.
 19 November 1987 at 19:00: a large UFO was seen at close quarters hovering over houses in Brierley Hill.

 1 December 1987: Philip Spencer (pseudonym), a retired policeman, took a picture on Ilkley Moor, which is claimed to be of an alien creature, and then saw a white-coloured craft leaving the area. The object in the photograph was examined by Kodak Laboratories at Hemel Hempstead and they decided that the object was not superimposed. This was one of the few British close encounters of the third kind. Under hypnosis he claimed to have been abducted and medically examined.

1990s–2000
 4 August 1990 at around 21:00: a diamond object estimated to be 100 feet wide was seen and photographed by two men near Calvine, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It was reported as hovering silently in place for 10 minutes before rising rapidly into the sky.
 21 April 1991: airline pilot Achille Zaghetti from Grosseto, Tuscany, in an Alitalia McDonnell Douglas MD-80 on a flight from Milan to Heathrow saw a three-metre-long khaki-coloured object over Lydd in Kent at 22,000 ft about 300m away. It was seen on radar.
 1992: James Walker noticed unidentified lights in the sky over Bonnybridge, the town became the scene of numerous UFO sightings. It forms part of the "Falkirk Triangle", an area stretching from Stirling to Fife and the outskirts of Edinburgh. Ufologists claim that Bonnybridge is the world's number one UFO location, with an average of around 300 sightings a year.
 March 1992: Isabella Sloggett, and her daughter Carol, were walking towards Bonnybridge and saw a blue light hovering above the road in front of them. A UFO landed, and a door on the craft opened.

 1993, 31 March: Multiple witnesses across south-west and west England saw a large triangular-shaped UFO speeding across the sky leaving a luminous wake. Analysis of the sightings concluded that the object was the re-entry of a Russian booster rocket combined with a later sighting of a police helicopter.
 26 September 1993: a large black triangle is seen over Bakewell in the Derbyshire Dales at 21:30.
 19 February 1994: a metallic disc-shaped object was filmed over Craigluscar Reservoir near Dunfermline in Scotland by Ian McPherson.
 6 January 1995: pilots aboard a Boeing 737 on British Airways Flight BA5061 from Milan saw an object on their descent to Manchester at 4,000 ft when over the southern Pennines. The reports have been attributed to a bright fireball.
 5 October 1996: the Wash Incident – in the early morning, a rotating UFO was seen over The Wash by Skegness and Boston police officers, although later (partially) explained as a radar echo of St Botolph's Church. The visual sightings were explained as celestial objects.
 24 March 1997: At 22:00 on the Dark Peak, Howden Moor, two sonic booms were heard over the area, and recorded at this time although the RAF denied having supersonic aircraft in the area. They later helped in the night-long search for a crashed aircraft, using helicopters and sniffer dogs from the police with 150 Mountain Rescue volunteers. No wreckage was found. A triangle-shaped UFO had been seen an hour before the sonic booms in the local area.
 5 October 2000: A woman named Sharon Rowlands from Bonsall, Derbyshire claimed to have seen a large luminous pink object hovering and rotating over a nearby field. She filmed the object on a camcorder.

21st century

 26 May 2004: a 60 metre long cigar-shaped object was seen over Torquay. Local teenagers later came forward to admit the sighting was caused by their toy inflatable airship.
 June 2005: three white objects were seen flying above the east end of Glasgow on a cloudy sky around 00:00. A man from Baillieston was reported to have heard spaceman-esque voices through his electronic equipment around the time of the sighting. Russian Antonov An-30s were proposed as explanations. A similar sighting was seen in Lockeridge, Wiltshire on broad daylight. A man reported seeing three "white metallic craft" while out cycling on the evening of 21 June.
 June, 2006: Cookley Worcestershire sighting of a silent, shiny, silver, triangular object in the evening sky. The object was seen by two people driving home along Lea Lane, heading toward the village of Cookley. It was hovering approximately 5–10 meters above the ground and was traversing the horizon in complete silence.
 November, 2007: Numerous people from the West Midlands conurbation reported sightings in the evening sky of a silent, triangular object, which the press later dubbed the "Dudley Dorito".
 12 January 2008: A large fleet of UFOs or "glowing Red Spheres" were seen over Liverpool heading east.
 8 June 2008: A number of UFO sightings took place in Wales which involved a police helicopter following a UFO over Cardiff near MOD St Athan, the Bristol Channel and nearby areas such as Eglwys Brewis, Barry, and Sully.
 26 June 2009: British singer Kim Wilde reported having seen a "huge bright light behind a cloud" above her Hertfordshire garden that kept her hanging on. She described the light as "brighter than the moon, but similar to the light from the moon". Upon further inspection, Wilde reported to have witnessed the light moving "very quickly, from about 11:00 to 1:00. Then it just did that, back and forth, for several minutes… Whenever it moved, something shifted in the air – but it was silent. Absolutely silent." A second report of this UFO was subsequently made by a fellow local Hertfordshire resident, who had managed to obtain photographic evidence to support the apparent sighting.
 10 September 2009: In Glen Road, near Lennoxtown, three people in a car were reportedly struck by a colourful beam of light, the event reportedly lasted for over two minutes.
 13 July 2013: An Airbus A320 pilot encounters an object closing in on his passenger plane, which passes extremely close to the cockpit whilst flying at 34,000 ft above Berkshire. With no time to make an evasive manoeuvre, the Captain instinctively ducked as he believed a collision was imminent.

See also
 British UFO Research Association
 List of investigations of UFOs by governments
 List of reported UFO sightings
 UFO sightings in Australia

References

External links
 National Archives
 MUFON - Last 20 UFO Sightings and Pictures
 PRUFOS
 Interview with Robert Taylor and detectives investigating the case on YouTube. as shown on the 10th episode of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, originally broadcast 4 November 1980
 Ufo sightings from stirling city Scotland 1985 to 2017

Historical events in the United Kingdom
British history timelines
The National Archives (United Kingdom)

UFO sightings in the United Kingdom


The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7,000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand (best known for its supermarket and Funeralcare brands) which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.

Co-operatives UK is the central membership organisation for co-operative enterprise throughout the UK. This is a co-operative of co-operatives: a co-operative federation. Most kinds of co-operatives are eligible to join Co-operatives UK.

Origins of the British co-operative movement
Though the history of the co-operative movement in the UK is often traced back to the Rochdale Pioneers of 1844, the history of co-operation can be traced back much further. The origins of modern co-operatives owe their beginnings not simply to the extreme poverty faced by many in the 18th and 19th centuries, but also to the rapid social changes of urbanisation, the rising food prices which resulted from the marketisation of the economy and from the lack of political representation for the working class during this period. These factors led to a number of social changes including an increased focus on mutual businesses (notably co-operatives) in public discourse during this time and also to events such as the Swing Riots of 1830. Early co-ops often focused on the provision of essential services (notably food) to members where the market was either unable to provide these services sufficiently or was considered unjust. Often the more successful co-ops were established around the trades which were experiencing the largest impact from the rapid industrialisation such as mining and weaving. This was likely due to the clearer direct benefits of membership and the solidarity of workers with a similar plight. The provision of food was a highly successful area for co-ops with many becoming involved in milling and baking bread. The Hull Anti-Mill Co-op, established in 1795 and which traded for a century, provides an example of such a successful society.

Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers

Though many co-operative societies had been established by the 1840s many had not been successful with societies often suffering through financial maladministration or fraud owing to the very limited legislation surrounding such enterprises. During the boom times, when work in the factories was more fruitful, co-operative societies also had difficulty encouraging people to retain their membership owing to perception of its limited financial benefits. It became understood that some kind of economic benefit for membership was required alongside the educational and social benefits. It was the implementation of the patronage dividend and the formalisation of the Rochdale Principles which led to the success of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers which was established in December 1844, a business which continues to this day as a part of The Co-operative Group. The Rochdale Pioneers society became highly successful with 1,400 members in 1855 and the co-op expanded further, after opening additional stores, to have 5,560 members by 1870. This success encouraged a boom in co-operatives in the following decades across the UK, but predominately across the industrial heartlands of northern England.

By 1860 there were more than 200 co-ops in the north west of England which were running in a similar manner to the Rochdale society. Private shopkeepers became resentful of the competition which they were experiencing from these new co-operative stores, often as they saw the dividend as an unfair competitive advantage, and so some powerful shopkeepers lobbied for wholesalers to stop supplying these new co-operative societies. Though few such boycotts actually occurred, this threat worried many people in the co-operative movement and so they endeavoured to create a co-operative wholesaler to supply at least some key products to co-operative stores. The Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1862 enabled co-operative societies to invest in other co-operative societies, in effect permitting co-operative federations. Following this the North of England Co-operative Wholesale Industrial and Provident Society Limited, later renamed the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) was launched in Manchester by 300 individual co-operatives in Yorkshire and Lancashire during 1863. The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society was founded in 1868.

Consumers' co-operatives (retail and food)

The largest and most recognised part of the UK movement are the many consumers' co-operatives. They are co-operative businesses run for the benefit of their customer members. Of these co-operatives, the largest sector is food retailing, though they have a significant presence in other sectors such as travel agencies and funeral directors.
The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen a gradual exit by these businesses from the non-food retailing market.

Many co-operatives (by convention known as co-operative societies) started out in a single village, town or city usually with just a single store. Here, members would be customers of the society's trading location and the society would reward these members with a proportion of any profits based on that member's spending with the society, or a dividend. This is a fundamental difference between a co-operative and a joint stock company.
Most societies were small, and by 1900, there were 1,439 co-operatives covering virtually every area of the UK.
Gradually, many societies expanded by opening further stores or by merging with a neighbouring society. Today, there is one dominant, national society, The Co-operative Group, and a number of large regional co-operative societies such as Central England Co-operative, the Midcounties Co-operative and Scotmid. Many of these large co-operative societies have businesses in a number of sectors, are led by their values principles and owned by their members. Membership is open to everyone and alongside being democratically involved in the decision making of the societies, every year members receive a share of the profits based on the amount made in profits that year and the how much they had spent with any of its businesses. In the case of The Co-operative Group, the society has over four million members and 3,600 trading outlets for its family of business which comprises groceries, insurance, funerals, legal services and health. In contrast to these large regional or national societies, some have remained with a single store such as Shepley Co-op, Grosmont Co-op, Coniston Co-op and Allendale Co-op.

The decline, through mergers, of single shop co-operatives, was reversed by two trends.
Firstly, around 170 community owned shops were established since 1979, many of which are co-operatives.
Secondly, the United States food co-operative movement was replicated in the UK: some of the independent food co-operatives established in the late 20th and early 21st centuries operate shops.

History of the British consumer co-operative movement

By 1860 there were more than 200 co-ops in the north west of England which were running in a similar manner to the Rochdale society. Private shopkeepers became resentful of the competition which they were experiencing from these new co-operative stores, often as they saw the dividend as an unfair competitive advantage, and so some powerful shopkeepers lobbied for wholesalers to stop supplying these new co-operative societies. Though few such boycotts actually occurred, this threat worried many people in the co-operative movement and so they endeavoured to create a co-operative wholesaler to supply at least some key products to co-operative stores. The North of England Co-operative Wholesale Industrial and Provident Society Limited, later renamed the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) was launched in Manchester by 300 individual co-operatives in Yorkshire and Lancashire during 1863. The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society was founded in 1868. The CWS grew rapidly and supplied produce to co-operative stores across England, competing fiercely for trade from co-operative societies with other non-co-operative wholesalers which led to the CWS becoming highly innovative. By 1890 the CWS had established significant branches in Leeds, Blackburn, Bristol, Nottingham and Huddersfield alongside a number of factories which produced biscuits (Manchester), Boots (Leicester), Soap (Durham) and textiles (Batley). This rapid expansion continued so that by the outbreak of World War I the CWS had major offices in the United States, Denmark, Australia and a tea plantation in India.

Many, fiercely local, societies saw the CWS as a valuable supplier but did not want to exclusively purchase produce from a single source. In order to increase loyalty to the CWS, they started to assist the local retail societies in more ways than simply as a wholesaler. The CWS Bank, the precursor to The Co-operative Bank, financed loans for societies to use for expansion through purchasing new buildings, land or new equipment. After the acquisition of the Co-operative Insurance Society in 1913, the CWS also provided insurance services to members and the CWS also began providing legal services – all business which remain today. It was hoped that these financial ties, as well as the CWS corporate dividend, would increase loyalty to the CWS. During World War II rationing led to an effective pause in any major changes to the co-operative movement in the UK with the CWS becoming highly involved in sourcing overseas goods for UK consumers and manufacturing wartime goods. Following the war there was some attempt to modernise the co-operative stores. After the London Co-operative Society opened its first self-service shop in 1942 the co-operative movement led the way on the development of self-service stores to the point where, by the 1950s, 90% of self-service shops in the UK were run by co-operatives. Despite this the market share and the number of members of the society began to dwindle and - importantly - so did the member share capital which societies used to invest. The CWS responded with an operational facelift in 1968 which introduced the first national co-operative branding, the 'Co-op' cloverleaf. Though this led to some improvements the movement (including the CWS) remained largely unreformed with its grocery market share continuing its downward trend. It was also suggested around this time that societies merge to form regional societies to improve their competitiveness through the economies of scale. Many local co-op societies strongly resisted such mergers but, as their financial situation declined, many were forced to merge to create regional societies or with either the CRS or the SCWS to avoid failing. Consolidation within the movement was considerable and in 1973 serious financial mismanagement of the SCWS Bank led to the SCWS and the CWS merging to form a single UK-wide wholesale society.

The co-operative movement's market share and profitability continued to decline during the 1970s and 80s in part due to a number of reasons. Firstly the process of de-industrialisation which characterised the period led to serious economic difficulties in many of the movements heartlands (notably the northern industrial towns) which disproportionally impacted on the societies through a decrease in consumer spending despite the British economy seeing a rise in consumer disposable income overall. This was largely due to the strong increase in inequality in the UK at this time and the co-operative movement was not well placed to tap into this increase in middle class spending due to the geographic spread of its stores and the co-op's historic association as the shop for the 'working poor'. Secondly redevelopment projects in many cities between the 1950s and 1970s often moved people from rows of terraced housing (which featured co-op stores dotted throughout) to newer purpose-built estates, with around 18,000 co-op stores closing as they become redundant in this way. Thirdly the time was a period of notable inflation and a strong pound which led to a wave of cheap imported goods – this devastated much of the UKs manufacturing businesses (including the CWS). By the 1980s it became clear that the trend in the retail sector was towards large (often out of town) supermarkets and hypermarkets with hundreds of them appearing across the UK. The co-operative movement did build some superstores, having 74 by 1986, but often their development and competitiveness was hindered by the lack of a national distribution network and price competitiveness.

During the 1980s financial troubles and an increasing number of co-operative societies led to the CWS began rescuing many of these (after the CRS began to struggle financially from the number of failing co-ops that it had merged with), the CWS having returned to direct retailing after its merger with the SCWS the decade before. It was these mergers with consumers' co-operatives which led to the co-op having both corporate (co-op societies) and individual members and hence making it both a primary and secondary co-operative. The CWS's expansion into direct retailing (especially after the mergers of the 2000s) led to the CWS becoming such a highly visible business in the UK. The legacy of this was that many people consider the British co-operative movement to be one business, The Co-operative Group.

By the start of the 1990s the co-operative movement's share of the UK grocery market had declined to the point where the entire business model was under question. This was at a time where many building societies were demutualising as many of the public preferred the short-term financial gain of the windfall payment over the perceived lack of benefits from the mutual model. For a time it seemed as though the mutual or co-op model was almost dead – though around the 2008 financial crisis almost all of the demutualised building societies either failed or were forced to merge with a larger bank for support reigniting much debate on the virtues of the mutual and co-op models. The co-op's reputation was not helped in this respect by the factions within the movement, notably the strong rivalry between the CRS and the CWS, acting in a manner which exacerbated the belief held by many members of the public that, rather than working for the interests of all members, co-ops were largely acting in the self-interests of a dominant 'clique' of members within each society. Together these crises meant that the 1990s would become a crucial decade if 'The Co-op' was to survive. In order to raise capital to invest in its food stores (and also the increasingly successful The Co-operative Bank) the CWS sold many of its factories to Andrew Regan in 1994 for £111 million before in 1997 he posed a highly ambitious £1.2bn hostile takeover attempt of the CWS. This shocked many in the movement and consolidated support for the CWS as the 'linchpin' of the movement in a way that many had previous opposed. The CWS was able to defend itself from this takeover bid and after investigations by a private detective and a subsequent criminal court case, Regan's bid was rejected and two senior CWS executives were dismissed and imprisoned for fraud. An arrest warrant was issued for Andrew Regan in 1999 however he had already emigrated to Monaco.

The shock that Mr Regan's bid sent through the co-operative movement has been attributed with sowing the seeds for the merger of the CRS and the CWS in 1999. The merger took two years to complete and the launch of the newly combined business, named The Co-operative Group, was timed with the release of the 2001 Co-operative Commission report, chaired by John Monks, which proposed a strategy of modernisation which focused on improving store design and building a consistent branding whilst also driving for efficiency savings to make the food business more competitive - the similarity in conclusions between the 1919, 1958 and 2001 reports highlights the distinct lack of progress within the movement during this time. The 2001 report also highlighted the need to market what it called 'The Co-operative Advantage' which suggested that commercial success would provide the funding for the social goals of the movement which (when the public saw a tangible benefit to their own lives) would provide a competitive advantage to the co-op which would further its commercial success - a virtuous cycle. Unlike Gaitskell Commission's 1958 report the recommendations of the report, notably the major update to "The Co-operative brand" and the re-launch of the membership dividend scheme, were largely adopted by the co-operative movement including The Co-operative Group. These changes to the business are largely credited with the successes in profitability and the achievement in social goals which improved in the years after the Co-operative Commission report.

This is not to say that modernisation of the CWS had not been under way for some time. Since 1993 the CRTG had been working to switch the role of the CWS from 'selling to' to 'buying for' co-operative societies as a way of maximising the economies of scale to become more competitive to the major supermarkets. Since the 1960s the co-op had been following retail trends after they had occurred, always having to catch up, in a way that it led the changes before World War II. Many leaders in the movement began to appreciate that this 'me too' approach to retailing was not working, for example expanding into hypermarkets after Tesco and Sainsbury's had already developed a dominant position but without the resources to compete on price. As an attempt to differentiate itself from its larger competitors The Co-operative Bank had introduced an ethical policy in 1992 and this, along with its technical innovation, was well received with customers. The CWS decided that, though it had always aimed to trade responsibly (for example though the working conditions in its factories and plantations as well as its boycott of South African produce during the years of Apartheid, by cementing its 'ethical' credentials in a series of strong and clear policy commitments it could work to convince the public of the 'co-operative difference'. This move posed a bold step for the CWS leadership as this was a wholly new approach for such a large business. The CWS worked with The Fairtrade Foundation to help introduce the Fairtrade Mark in the UK, it was an early adopter of the RSPCA's 'Freedom Foods' animal welfare certification, it introduced the first supermarket line of 'environmentally friendly' household products and the first range of toiletries certified by Cruelty Free International as not tested on animals. This new adoption of an ethical strategy was only part of the CWS's changes. After the 1997 strategic review the business suggested that it close the majority of its hypermarkets and department stores and instead focus on its core chain of convenience stores, another significant proposal.

List of retail societies

Utility co-operatives

Utility co-operatives provide their members with services such as telecommunications, energy and water.

The Phone Co-op was established in 1998 and provides broadband, fixed line and mobile telecoms services to consumers and organisations. Today the business is part of the Midcounties Co-operative and provides landline, mobile telephone and Internet services, including broadband.

The Co-operative Energy is an energy supplier which is operated on behalf of Midcounties Co-operative by Octopus Energy, making it the only co-operative supplier in the UK energy market. The business sources more than half its energy from renewable sources (the UK average is approximately 15%) with some electricity sourced from several community owned renewable energy schemes, including the Great Dunkilns Farm wind turbine at St Briavels in Gloucestershire and Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative.

Financial co-operatives

Credit unions

Credit unions are a loan and savings co-operative. Members normally have a 'common bond' to make them eligible for membership. Commons bonds are usually that all members live in a certain locality, work for a common employer or belong to the same trade union, church or association. Because of the need for a common bond, most credit unions remain rather small. Credit unions are run in a not-for-profit way. This means they use their money to run their services and reward their members – not to pay outside shareholders. They must set money aside each year to ensure they don't go bust. They use any leftover money to provide better services to members or share evenly among savings accounts (a dividend)

In Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), credit unions are regulated by the Financial Services Authority who set certain standard and approve the people who hold important positions within a credit union. All credit unions must have the words 'credit union' in the title, or in Wales they can have 'undeb credyd'. The main trade association for credit unions in Great Britain is the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd (ABCUL). ABCUL is based in Holyoake House, a Grade One listed building in Manchester owned by Co-operativesUK.

In Northern Ireland, credit unions are currently regulated by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and registered by its registry function – the Registry of Credit Unions and Industrial and Provident Societies. However, there are proposals for regulatory reform, set out by HM Treasury and the DETI, which detail transferring registration and regulatory responsibility for credit unions in Northern Ireland to the Financial Services Authority. The main trade association for credit unions throughout the island of Ireland is the Irish League of Credit Unions.

Housing

Housing co-operatives are owned and democratically controlled by its member-tenants. The Confederation of Co-operative Housing is the UK's national body for housing co-ops.

Worker

A worker co-operative is a co-operative owned and democratically controlled by its employees. There are no outside- or consumer-owners in a worker co-operative. Only the workers own shares of the business. It is estimated that there are approximately 403 worker owned and controlled co-operatives in the United Kingdom. In 2009 Co-operativesUK recorded a combined turnover of £144 million with assets of £32 million as part of the Co-operative Review 2009.

The largest employee-owned company in the UK is the John Lewis Partnership. Though John Lewis is a public limited company, its shares are held in trust on behalf of the employees rather than being traded on the London Stock Exchange. Each employee (referred to as "partner" within John Lewis) has a say in how the company is run and each year they are awarded an equal percentage share of the profits based on their salary. In the past ten years, this has amounted to between one and two months' salary for partners. The John Lewis Partnership operates twenty-six department stores and a web store under the John Lewis division and 187 (Dec 2007) supermarkets in the Waitrose division. The company's presence is more marked in the south and east of England though it is gradually expanding to other areas of Great Britain.

Suma is the largest independent wholefood wholesaler-distributor in the United Kingdom and a workers' co-operative. Suma specialise in vegetarian, Fairtrade, organic, ethical and natural products. Greencity Wholefoods is a similar worker co-operative based in Glasgow, Scotland.

Infinity Foods Workers Co-operative Ltd (co-operative) is a large independent wholefood business in East Sussex. With a retail outlet with artisan Bakery, Cafe and wholesaler-distribution. Infinity Foods specialise in vegetarian, Fairtrade, organic, ethical and natural products. Infinity Foods workers co-operative has over 100 worker members making it one of the biggest independent employers in the Brighton and Hove area.

Footprint Workers Co-operative, a printing service has been running in Leeds since 1997.

The Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative is the oldest workers co-operative in Scotland, being established in 1977. It has since expanded and now operates eight stores across Scotland and northern England as well as an online sales platform.. Brixton Cycles, inspired by Edinburgh, opened in 1983 and is also still running today.

Agricultural
Agricultural marketing and supply co-operatives are owned by farmers. Openfield Group, Britain's only national grain marketing and arable inputs co-operative, has over 4,000 farmer owners. Mole Valley Farmers is another example of a supply co-operative founded by farmers.

The late 20th century saw the demutualisation of several large co-operatives, including the large regional West Midland Farmers, which was founded in 1916 as the Atworth and District Agricultural Society. West Midland Farmers renamed itself to Countrywide Farmers in 1999, becoming a joint stock company owned by 11,000 farmers until it went out of business in 2018.

The 1994 break-up of the Milk Marketing Board eventually formed several large dairy marketing co-operatives, including Milk Marque (since demutualised and renamed Community Foods Group), Dairy Farmers of Britain (ceased trading in 2009), Milk Link (merged into Arla Foods in 2012) and First Milk.

Community co-operatives

Community shops
Community shops are not dissimilar from food co-ops but are often found in more remote villages and provide some of the services of a convenience store but also frequently have cafe, healthcare or library services. Since 1979 some two dozen community co-operatives have been  established in remote areas in the Scottish Highlands and Islands and have carried on not only retaiing but manufacturing and service industries, improving both incomes and the quality of life. As of 2015, there are 330 community shops in the UK.

Community pubs
Community pubs have largely resulted from situations where a pub chain has chosen to close a pub, often in a village which is otherwise under-served by pubs. Commonly community pubs in England are established by listing the pub as an Asset of Community Value under the 2011 Localism Act before a group of local people raise sufficient funds to purchase and re-open the pub. Funds are often raised using a community shares scheme and are subsequently run as co-operatives. As of 2015, there are 35 community pubs registered in the UK. In some situations a community pub may also incorporate a community shop.

Examples of community pubs include: The Angler's Rest, Bamford, Fox and Goose, Hebden Bridge, Fox and Hounds, Charwelton, The Rose and Crown, Hexham and The Ivy House in Nunhead, south London.

Community centres

Crossing over sometimes with the function of Community pubs, self-organised social centres or community centres are often worker or volunteer co-operatives. Often starting off as informal collectives or squats, some social centres incorporate, often finding the cooperative model appropriate. These buildings can have community spaces, resources, bars and cafes within them. Examples include Partisan in Manchester, the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham.

Community energy co-operatives

A number of community-owned co-operatives have been established to own and run small-scale renewable energy projects. Many of these operate as onshore wind farms, small-scale solar power installations or as micro-hydro projects. Financing for such schemes is often a combination of community shares and loan funding and surplus funds are often distributed (once interest to loan providers and shareholders is paid) to community groups or local development projects. Examples of such co-operatives include the Baywind Energy Co-operative and Torrs Hydro.

Retailers'

Retailers' co-operatives (not to be confused with retail consumer co-operatives, above) provide marketing and wholesaling services to retail businesses.
Independent retail consumer co-operatives are corporate members of The Co-operative Group, a secondary co-operative.  The Co-operative Group manages the Co-operative Federal Retail and Trading Services, servicing 3,200 food stores, including its own and those of its corporate members. The Group also provides other collective buying, marketing and distribution functions.
Members of the Arizona hoteliers' marketing association, Best Western, have 280 hotels in the UK, .
UK retail business Nisa is part of The Co-operative Group.  , Nisa represents 300 wholesalers and 674 retailers, with 5000 convenience stores and small supermarkets, including the Costcutter symbol group.
The Dutch association of retailers and wholesalers, Spar, is very similar to Nisa, but its UK membership is smaller. , Spar members have 2,500 outlets in the UK.
Most retail florists are members of Interflora, a former co-operative that demutualised in 2006 (when it was acquired by its United States affiliate, Florists' Transworld Delivery.)

Support organisations

In addition to Co-operatives UK, the central membership organisation for British co-operatives, there are a variety of other support organisations and secondary co-operatives serving the sector. The Plunkett Foundation promotes co-operation in rural communities, including the agricultural and retail sectors. There are several other sectoral co-operative bodies, such as the Confederation of Co-operative Housing and Supporters Direct.

The Co-operative College has, since 1919, served the co-operative sector in terms of developing members and managers, working internationally and developing new co-operative ideas. Various independent co-operative development agencies assist the formation of new co-operative enterprises. Co-operative & Community Finance provides financing for new ventures. The Co-operative Press publishes Co-op News, the main news organ of the movement. The UK Society for Co-operative Studies brings together academics and co-operators and publishes the Journal of Co-operative Studies.

The Co-operative Party was formed to promote the co-operative sector in Parliament. Retail societies and other co-operatives are among the members of the party, which works with the Labour Party to elect those sympathetic to co-operative issues and to promote co-operation and mutuality. The think tank and consultancy Mutuo was originally developed by the party and now operates independently across the wider mutual sector in the United Kingdom.

The Woodcraft Folk is an organisation widely considered to be the youth arm of the co-operative movement. Woodcraft Folk groups teach the principles of cooperation to children and is financially supported by the Co-operative Group and many other cooperative societies.

The Wales Co-operative Centre is a co-operative development organisation based in Wales. They deliver business support for groups looking to set up co-operatives and social enterprises, and also deliver support around the themes of employee buyout and co-operative consortia working. They also provide support for organisations who are exploring setting up housing co-operatives.

Students for Cooperation is a federation of 30 student co-operatives across the UK. The organisation works to support new and existing student co-ops, and to promote and raise awareness of the co-operative model amongst students.

References

External links
 Co-operativesUK
 The Co-operative Group
 Association of British Credit Unions
 Irish League of Credit Unions
 Confederations of Co-operative Housing
 LETS Link
 Plunkett Foundation
 The Woodcraft Folk
 Students for Cooperation
 Wales Co-operative Centre

Political movements in the United Kingdom
British political party founders

British co-operative movement


Rowland Taylor (sometimes spelled "Tayler") (6 October 1510 – 9 February 1555) was an English Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.

At the time of his death, he was Rector of  Hadleigh in Suffolk.  He was burnt at the stake at nearby Aldham Common.

Early life and education
Taylor was born at Rothbury in Northumberland. In 1530, he received his LL.B. degree from the University of Cambridge. From 1531 to 1538 he was principal of Burden Hostel there. In 1534, he received the LL.D. from Cambridge, the same year Martin Luther completed his German Bible.  One year later, in 1535, William Tyndale was tried and denounced as a heretic for his new English Bible translation.  Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536.  Taylor's wife, Margaret Tyndale, was William Tyndale's niece.

Religious career
 In the late 1530s Taylor served as Hugh Latimer's chaplain and commissary general of the diocese of Winchester.
 In March 1538 Taylor was collated by Latimer to the St Mary's parish church of Hanbury, Worcestershire.
 When Latimer resigned, Taylor was taken under the wing of Thomas Cranmer, living with him and (1539) serving as his chaplain. He was ordained by Cranmer and admitted to the parish church of St Swithin's in Worcester.  He was thus given his licence to preach and did so in the diocese of London.
 On 16 April 1544, he was presented to the living of Hadleigh, Suffolk.
 In 1543 the English Parliament banned Tyndale's English version and all public reading of the Bible by laymen.  Religious persecution of Protestant clergy, especially by Roman Catholics, intensified in Britain at this time.
 In 1546 the Council of Trent, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, decreed that the Latin Vulgate was the authoritative version of the Bible.
 In the summer of 1547, Taylor was employed as a preacher for the royal visitation within the dioceses of Lincoln, Oxford, Lichfield and Coventry.
 On 15 August 1547, he became canon of Rochester, the same year during which King Henry VIII had died in January.
 In 1548, Taylor was appointed archdeacon of Bury St Edmunds and preached at the request of the Lord Mayor at Whitsuntide or Pentecost.
 Edward VI, who reigned from 1547 to 1553, followed Henry VIII, and in 1549 the Book of Common Prayer became the Protestant liturgical text in England.
 In 1550, Taylor was called to serve on a commission against Anabaptists. The same year, he also helped to administer the vacant diocese of Norwich.
 In 1551, at age 41, Taylor was made archdeacon of Exeter in the diocese of Exeter, was also appointed one of the Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral and was appointed chancellor to Bishop Nicholas Ridley.  His leadership was expanded by serving on a commission to revise the ecclesiastical laws.
 In 1552, he helped administer the vacant diocese of Worcester.

Political troubles from 1553

Taylor's troubles began on 25 July 1553. He was arrested just six days after the new queen, Mary I, ascended the throne.  Aside from the fact that Taylor had supported Lady Jane Grey, Mary's rival, he was also charged with heresy for having preached a sermon in Bury St Edmunds denouncing the Roman Catholic practice of clerical celibacy, which required that a priest in holy orders be unmarried. Many English clergymen, including Taylor, had abandoned this teaching since the 1530s as a token of the English Reformation.

Taylor also denounced the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which is the belief that the two elements (bread and wine) taken during Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Since the Roman Catholic position is that the Eucharist (and the miracle of transubstantiation) is a sacrament commanded by God, anyone denying it, particularly a cleric or pastor, is considered a heretic. This teaching was opposed universally by the Reformed and Protestant Churches, who maintained that, since a sacrament is a sign, it cannot also be the thing signified. For similar reasons relating to the problem of idolatry, Taylor took issue with the Roman Catholic form of the Mass and received much support from the people of Hadleigh.

These issues came to a head after Edward VI died (6 July 1553) and was succeeded by Queen Mary I. In 1554, Mary began a programme of re-establishing Catholicism in England. However, the English clergy and Anglican faithful, whose hopes for a Protestant royal succession had been dashed by Mary's imprisonment and execution of Lady Jane Grey, saw it as a matter of English Christian duty to resist this backlash, not least to resist the political ambitions of the king of Spain (Philip II, whom Mary married) to draw England within the sphere of the Holy Roman Empire and its Roman Catholic satellites. Although Mary, as Henry VIII's eldest daughter, was a legitimate successor to Edward VI, England was no longer minded to tolerate a Roman Catholic monarch, and the courage and endurance unto death of men such as Taylor provided the public example which ensured that the Reformation was not in fact overturned, but became established in the realm of England.

On 26 March 1554, the Privy Council ordered the arrest of Taylor, and he thus appeared before Bishop Stephen Gardiner. The proceedings against Taylor ran over several years. During this time he was kept in the King's Bench Prison. While in prison he befriended many inmates and was instrumental in many conversions to Anglicanism.

Trial and martyrdom

January 1555 was an ominous month for Anglican clergy in England. After several years of separation from Roman worship and governance, the accession of Mary I in 1553 and her immediate reversion to Roman Catholic rule in obedience to the Pope (an attempt to turn back the Reformation of the English church) led her to unleash her wrath upon those whom she defined as treasonably minded heretics. On 22 January 1555, Rowland Taylor (rector of Hadleigh) and several other clergy, including John Hooper, were examined by a commission of leading bishops and lawyers. As Lord Chancellor, Gardiner presided at the hearings. Just two days previously, on 20 January, Parliament had revived the old statute for burning convicted heretics.

One of the men, Edward Crome, recanted and was thus pardoned. William Barlow equivocated and was sent to the Tower of London, but not executed. Rowland Taylor, who remained committed, was probably taken to Poultry Compter Prison in London after his examination by Gardiner. Taylor gave a fervent defence of clerical marriage, which put him at odds with the Roman Catholic Church.

On 29 January 1555, Taylor was brought before Gardiner again at St Mary's.  The next day he was excommunicated and sentenced to death.  He was stripped of his clerical garments in a symbolic manner, and offered a last supper with his family.

His reaction to his accusers, as recorded by the martyrologist John Foxe, was this:

And although I know, that there is neither justice nor truth to be looked for at my adversaries hands, but rather imprisonment and cruel death: yet know my cause to be so good and righteous, and the truth so strong upon my side, that I will by God's grace go and appear before them and to their beards resist their false doings.

Final words
 His wife awaited him in the early morning hours at St Botolph's Aldgate churchyard in London; they exchanged a few last brief words and Margaret promised to be present for his burning in a couple of days.  That same day, Taylor was handed over to the sheriff of Essex at Chelmsford.  Before he was handed over, he spoke these words to his family:

I say to my wife, and to my children, The Lord gave you unto me, and the Lord hath taken me from you, and you from me: blessed be the name of the Lord! I believe that they are blessed which die in the Lord. God careth for sparrows, and for the hairs of our heads. I have ever found Him more faithful and favourable, than is any father or husband. Trust ye therefore in Him by the means of our dear Saviour Christ's merits: believe, love, fear, and obey Him: pray to Him, for He hath promised to help. Count me not dead, for I shall certainly live, and never die. I go before, and you shall follow after, to our long home.

Taylor was taken from London back to Hadleigh, and was held in the cellar of Lavenham Guildhall. Following John Rogers on 4 February and Lawrence Saunders on 8 February, Taylor became Mary's third Protestant to be burned at the stake. His execution took place on 9 February 1555, at Aldham Common just north of Hadleigh. His wife, two daughters, and his son Thomas were present that day.

His final words to his son Thomas, as reported by Foxe:

Almighty God bless thee, and give you his Holy Spirit, to be a true servant of Christ, to learn his word, and constantly to stand by his truth all the life long. And my son, see that thou fear God always. Fly from all sin and wicked living. Be virtuous, serve God daily with prayer, and apply thy boke. In anywise see thou be obedient to thy mother, love her, and serve her. Be ruled by her now in thy youth, and follow her good counsel in all things. Beware of lewd company of young men, that fear not God, but followeth their lewd lusts and vain appetites. Flee from whoredom, and hate all filthy lying, remembering that I they father do die in the defense of holy marriage. And another day when God shall bless thee, love and cherish the poor people, and count that thy chief riches to be rich in alms. And when thy mother is waxed old, forsake her not, but provide for her to thy power, and see that she lacks nothing. For so will God bless thee, give thee long life upon earth, and prosperity, which I pray God to grant thee.

A local butcher was ordered to set a torch to the wood but resisted. A couple of bystanders finally threw a lighted torch onto the wood. A perhaps sympathetic guard, named Warwick, struck Taylor's head with a halberd, which apparently killed him instantly. The fire consumed his body shortly thereafter. That same day, John Hooper was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

Memorials

An unhewn stone, probably dating from the early 17th century, marks the place of Taylor's death at Aldham Common, where the B1070 Lady Lane meets the A1071 Ipswich Road. The stone is inscribed:

Next to the unhewn stone, there is also a pyramidal stone monument erected in 1818, and restored by parishioners in 1882. The monument has verses written by Nathan Drake painted on it. It is a Grade II listed building.

In St Mary's Church, Hadleigh, the south-east window in St John's Chapel  commemorates Taylor.

See also
 List of Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation

References

Sources
 W. J. Brown. The Life of Rowland Taylor LL.D. (Epworth Press, 1959)
 John Foxe. Foxe's Book of Martyr's.  The account of Rowland Taylor's martyrdom is the entire subject of Chapter 14.
 James Ridley. Bloody Mary's Martyrs: The Story of England's Terror. 2002.

External links

 John Foxe: Acts and Monuments. The Variorum Edition, hriOnline, Sheffield 2004
 Memoirs of the Reformers (Rowland Taylor)
 The Legacy of Rowland Taylor
 Hadleigh in Suffolk
 Wikimapia location of Rowland Taylor statue, Hadleigh, Suffolk, UK.

1510 births
1555 deaths
People from Rothbury
16th-century English Anglican priests
16th-century Protestant martyrs
Archdeacons of Exeter
Executed people from Northumberland
Executed people from Suffolk
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning
People executed for heresy
People executed under Mary I of England
Protestant martyrs of England
English chaplains

Rowland Taylor


Jordan Rapp (born July 28, 1980) is an American professional triathlete. He is the 2011 ITU Long Distance Triathlon world champion. He has won 8 long distance, multi-sport events, including five Ironman Triathlon competitions.

Athletic career
Rapp was born in New York City. He spent time growing up in Tokyo, Japan and a small cabin in upstate New York during the summers. At age 9 Rapp's family moved permanently to the suburbs north of New York City along the Hudson River. In high school he played sports such as squash and lacrosse. He attended Princeton University, where he was on the rowing team. After an injury training for the U.S. National Team, he began competing in triathlons.

He had already won two Ironman competitions when, on March 23, 2010, when he was a victim of a hit and run car accident while out riding his bike. Rapp suffered numerous broken bones including his clavicle and scapula, as well as contusions and lacerations about the head and neck. Rapp lost between two and three liters of blood as a result of the accident. His life was saved by Chief Petty Officer Thomas Sanchez, who came across the accident and put pressure on Rapp's severed jugular. The suspect, Marco Garcia-Ortiz, 27, was thought to have fled to Mexico.

Recovery took months, but Rapp returned to win Ironman Canada in August 2011, followed by several other long distance multisport events.

Personal life
Rapp resides in Thousand Oaks, CA & Penticton, BC with his wife, Jill Savege and son, Quentin Thomas Rapp (born Jun 21, 2011). In addition to his career as a professional triathlete, he is Chief Technology Officer for Slowtwitch.com.

Every year, as part of his participation in World Bicycle Relief, he gives away his bike to a worthy applicant as well as raising funds for the charity.

Notable results
Rapp's notable achievements include:
 2019: Masters National Track Cycling Championships 3k Individual Pursuit - 1st
 2015: Ironman Mont-Tremblant - 1st
 2012: Leadman Epic 250, Bend, OR - 1st
 2012: Ironman New York - U.S. Championships - 1st
 2012: Ironman Texas - 1st§
 2011: ITU Long Distance World Championships - 1st
 2011: Ironman Canada - 1st
 2011: Leadman Epic 250, Las Vegas - 1st
 2009: Ironman Arizona - 1st∞‡
 2009: Ironman Canada - 1st

‡ bike course record
∞ course record
§ run course record

References

External links

Specialized Profile profile

1980 births
Living people
American male triathletes
Hackley School alumni
Sportspeople from New York City
Princeton University alumni
American expatriates in Japan

Jordan Rapp