Abstract
Until the 1860’s it could not be said that there was any national leadership of the trade unions. The National Association of United Trades for the Protection of Labour, which as we have seen had had a shadowy existence since its foundation in 1845, operated only on special occasions such as when the Molestation of Workmen Bill was being drawn up. We do not know how much support the National Association could claim in the country at large: it can hardly have had very much. But the formation of the London Trades Council in 1860 seemed to put matters on a different footing. Although London was only part of the whole country, it contained a large proportion of existing unionism, and was also the headquarters of a number of the national unions. The full-time secretaries of the latter formed a group which dominated the London Trades Council in its early days, and could claim in some sense at least to be representative of national union opinion.
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Further Reading
For the trade-union leaders’ entry into politics generally see F. E. Gillespie, Labour and Politics in England, 1850–67 (Durham, N.C., 1927). On various aspects of the subject see Daphne Simon, ‘Master and Servant’, in J. Saville (ed.), Democracy and the Labour Movement (1954); V. L. Allen, ‘The Origins of Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration’, International Review of Social History, ix (1964); S, Coltham, ‘The Bee-Hive Newspaper’, in A. Briggs and J. Saville (eds), Essays in Labour History (1960); and two articles by H. W. McCready, ‘British Labour and the Royal Commission on Trade Unions 1867–9’, University of Toronto Quarterly, xxiv (1955) and ‘British Labour’s Lobby, 1867–75’, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, xxii (1956). A different view of the evidence before the Royal Commission (see above, p. 60) is provided by C. G. Hanson, ‘Craft Unions, Welfare Benefits, and the Case for Trade Union Law Reform’, Economic History Review, 2 ser., xxviii (1975). R. Harrison, Before the Socialists (1965) contains a useful account of the role of the Positivists in the Labour movement. Also of interest is H. Collins and C. Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement (1965). The most useful biographies are W. H. G. Armytage, A. J. Mundella (1951); F. M. Leventhal, Respectable Radical: George Howell and Victorian Working Class Politics (1971); and G. M. Wilson, Alexander McDonald (Aberdeen, 1982). On the foundation and early history of the T.U.C. see A. E. Musson, The Congress of 1868 (1955); W.J. Davis, British T.U.C.: History and Recollections (vol. 1, 1910); and Henry Broadhurst M.P.: the Story of His Life told by Himself (1901). On the beginnings of railway trade unionism see P. W. Kingsford, ‘Labour Relations on the Railways, 1835–75’, Journal of Transport History, i (1953). On unionism in agriculture, see A. Clayden, Revolt of the Field (1874); R. C. Russell, Revolt of the Field in Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1956); Frances, Countess of Warwick (ed.), Joseph Arch (1898); and J. P. D. Dunbabin, Rural Discontent in Nineteenth Century Britain (1974). J. R. Ravensdale, ‘The China Clay Labourers’ Union’, History Studies, i (1968) tells the story of a short-lived union of the 1870’s. Essays on groups of actual or would-be ‘Labour aristocrats’ will be found in R. Harrison and J. Zeitlin (eds), Divisions of Labour (Brighton, 1985). E. F. Biagini and A.J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism (Cambridge, 1991) also contains useful essays on the ‘old unionists’.
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© 1992 Henry Pelling
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Pelling, H. (1992). The Formation of a Pressure Group, 1860–80. In: A History of British Trade Unionism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12968-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12968-3_4
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