Percy Redfern

Percy Redfern (1875 – 11 February 1958) was a British co-operative movement writer and journalist and an advocate for consumer co-operation.

Biography

Redfern was born the illegitimate son of a housekeeper in Leicester in 1875. He was raised by his father, Francis Redfern, who was an architect and by his stepmother. He went to seven different schools, including Nottingham Grammar School, before becoming an apprentice to a draper in Nottingham.

In 1913 he wrote his first history of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, The Story of the C.W.S., followed in 1938 by The New History of the C.W.S. He retired from the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 1938 but continued his work as a writer, with his autobiography Journey to Understanding published in 1946. He died in York on 11 February 1958 and was buried at the Southern Cemetery in Manchester.

Publications