The Setting

Abstract

This book is divided into three parts, each consisting of four or more chapters. In the first part we shall be considering the evolution of local clubs and societies and eventually unions (the term was not used until the early nineteenth century) up to the point when national organisation embracing all forms of union was formed to win legal recognition from Parliament. The period covered is a long one, for the first clubs can be traced in the later seventeenth century, and the parliamentary struggle to secure legal status for trade unionism did not take place until the late 1860’s and early 1870’s.