The Peel Web

I am happy that you are using this web site and hope that you found it useful. Unfortunately, the cost of making this material freely available is increasing, so if you have found the site useful and would like to contribute towards its continuation, I would greatly appreciate it. Click the button to go to Paypal and make a donation.

Characteristics of Trade Unions 1830-50

1. They were Utopian and naive. Both leaders and members suffered from democratic ideals, which they put before reality. They believed that the 'brotherhood of man' was close
2. Founders of TUs followed a policy of setting up all-embracing TUs - mass movements:
   • 1818: Philanthropic Society in Lancashire, which was a general union
   • 1819: Philanthropic Hercules (London)
   • 1829: Cotton spinners at Hyde struck, but returned to work after six months, convinced that they had failed because of a lack of co-ordination with other cotton centres. Delegates from all the cotton spinning areas met in Ramsey, Isle of Man, under the leadership of John Doherty, the secretary of the Manchester cotton-spinners. In December the Grand General Union of All the Operative Spinners of the United Kingdom (usually known as the Spinners' Union) was set up for male cotton-spinners and piecers. Members paid subscriptions to local societies plus 1d per week to a central body, which was made up of three national committees (England, Ireland and Scotland). Its secretary was Doherty. It had failed by 1830.
   • July 1830 the National Association for the Protection of Labour was launched by Doherty. It was another general union, with its own journal, the United Trades Co-operative Journal. The entrance fee was £1 plus 1/- for each member of the affilliating society plus 1d per week per member. Although the contributions were high it was a popular organisation. At least 150 separate unions joined immediately and by early 1831 membership was 100,000 and growing. Members included miners, woollen workers, potters, mechanics and blacksmiths. The N.A.P.L. overshadowed the Spinners Union but because of quarrels and recriminations about trades refusing to support others, it had failed as a union in 1832.
   • In 1832 the Operative Builders' Union was formed. It was a federation of the seven building trades. Lodges were autonomous but each sent representatives to district meetings. The Builders' Union was influenced by Owen's idea of co-operative production. It appealed to builders who could take over from middle-men because there was little fixed capital involved in the building trade. In 1833 the builders in Liverpool launched an attack on the contractors; the employers used the Document so the Builders' Union called its members out on strike. In Manchester, the strike lasted for sixteen weeks. In September 1833 Owen spoke at the annual Builders' Parliament and outlined a scheme for a worker take-over. As a result of this, the Grand National Guild of Builders was formed. This meant that there were two builders' unions: the Operative Builders' Union (trying to get better conditions under the capitalist system) and the Grand National Guild of Builders (trying to abolish capitalism). Both had failed by 1834 because of internal dissent.

Owen believed - as did Doherty - that the ineffectiveness of the working classes was a result of a lack of co-ordination, and made another effort to establish one big union, aimed at ending the capitalist system. He intended that all individual competition would cease and industry would be carried on by 'national companies'. Owen called on the workers to organise into lodges and associations of lodges; a grand union of all trades would follow. The idea spread rapidly and a conference was held in London.

In February 1834 the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union was founded. The inclusion of all workers, including women, was ensured. Lodges had their own sick, funeral, superannuation and other benefits and there were no regular subscriptions to central funds. There was a general levy of members to acquire land and set up workshops, however. Membership was said to have reached 1 million within a few weeks, although there was no accurate record of the membership and it is believed that there were only 16,000 paid-up subscribers. The aim was syndicalist government, founded on a pyramid system of representation. The GNCTU was mainly London-based with a membership predominantly of artisans but branches did exist in other parts of the country; members were mostly artisans. It failed because of

• lack of money
• the use of the Document by employers
• its inability to support the Derby workers who had been locked out for refusing to abandon the Union.
• the fate of the Tolpuddle Martyrs

The GNCTU was the last mass union.

3. The working classes lacked education, know-how, economic and social power so they could be easily beaten by employers, the law and the government
4. Divisions existed between old and new industries and different trades had different needs. Also different areas had different needs: the woollen and cotton industries were mutually hostile because they were in competition with each other; hand and machine spinners and weavers were mutually hostile for the same reason.
5. There was no homogeneous working class as yet.
6. The unions lacked money especially in times of economic hardship such as that found in the 1830s and 1840s. This period saw a vicious spiral of distress because wages were falling; unemployment was rising; the population was increasing and increasingly it was an employer's market.
7. The unions suffered at the hands of poor administration. TUs had few affordable means of communication at their disposal and the railways were only just being built.
8. Political factors worked against the unions.
   1. The Tories did not see the need for political reform
   2. The Liberal Tories did not see the need for the inclusion of the working classes in politics or for greater democracy
   3. The Wellingtonian Tories did not see the need to give anything to the working classes
   4. Whig knowledge of economics was poor. They gave the working classes nothing (apart from workhouses after 1834)
   5. The middle classes could not be expected to give the working classes anything because free trade was the most important thing for the manufacturers and traders
9. Alternatives to work were
   1. claiming poor relief from the parish
   2. going on to the streets
   3. after 1834, going into the workhouse.
10. Trade Unions usually could not afford to give strike pay
11. Union leaders dissipated their energies in many different movements. For example,Doherty was involved with the Spinners' Union and the N.A.P.L. and Robert Owen was involved with
    • education
    • environmental improvement
    • self-help movements
    • factory legislation
    • New Lanark
    • New Harmony
    • the Co-operative movement.
12. The Document caused the final collapse of TUs. The trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs was a test case in 1834 and the message from the courts and the government seemed to be "Join a Trade Union and see Australia".