Beechwood College

Material relating to Beechwood College

Beechwood College was a national education and training centre for co-operative organisations based in Leeds. Beechwood was established in 1979 as a company limited by guarantee with workers control. The main functions of Beechwood were: 1. Offering residential conference centre for the north of England. 2. Running regular raining sessions covering a whole range of business skills, organisation requirements and legal issues, necessary for small and medium size co-operative development. 3. Offering special consultancy services for co-operatives and other organisations.

Beechwood College also ran regular co-operative fairs.

The collection is open to any accredited reader, subject to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Some files in this collection are subject to Data Protection legislation as they contain sensitive information and material under 30 years old is closed to access. It is advised that you contact the Archivist before visiting.

In October 2017, the National Co-operative Archive published a call-out for historic materials within the wider worker co-op community for Working Together , an Heritage Lottery Funded project seeking to record and preserve the heritage of the worker co-operative moment. This material was deposited in response to this call out.

Accruals expected.

Images of co-operative fairs held at Beechwood College, 1981/1982 available on the National Co-operative Archive Flickr.

Summary of oral history with Jim Brown, key figure involved in Beechwood College. Full interview available on request at the National Co-operative Archive.