The act was a significant legislative landmark in the establishment of the co-operative movement in the United Kingdom.

[2] However the act specified protection only for purchases, not for sales; so the co-operative societies were forced to use a legal fiction of dubious merit to cover themselves when selling, and it was this that brought home the need for a new statute to regularise their position.

[4] He had initially proposed a comparable Bill for Whig passage in 1851; but was blocked by Henry Labouchere at the Board of Trade.

[5] The following year Disraeli persuaded his colleagues that promoting such social reform would be politically advantageous for the Tories, as well as offering a route for working-class energies to be incorporated into society;[6] and the Bill passed into law.

The act not only provided a legal framework for the co-operative movement, but also specified much of its future direction - for example laying down the principle that up to one-third of profits could be shared among members, the rest being used to build up the business.