At first, the store was only open four evenings a week and on Saturday afternoon, but this improved after 1873, when the store moved to larger premises in Powis Street, next but one to the house in which the Woolwich Equitable Building Society had been established in 1842. Membership grew from 232 in 1873 to 1,597 in 1879 and 6,721 in 1889. By that time it was the largest co-operative society in London and the 21st largest (of more than 1500) in the country. According to the social reformer Charles Booth, there was "nothing at all like it within the boundaries of London".