ABSTRACT
The Rochdale socialist institution was a kind of irreligious convent, a chapel to pray a millennial gospel (…) Rochdale was the home of all the sects; and among them was the Owenite Socialists, with their ‘rational religion’ based on a rejection of all theological dogmas, from whom the original inspiration, though by no means all the original membership of the Equitable Pioneers, was drawn (G.D.H. Cole, 1944, pp.61, 55).
