Chapter I: The Origins of Trade Unionism (3)

[20] Schanz, however, in his _Zur Geschichte der deutschen Gesellenverbände_ (Leipzig, 1877), suggests that the associations of journeymen which flourished in Germany side by side with the Craft Gilds prior to the Thirty Years’ War (1618) were, in fact, virtually Trade Unions. Compare Schmoller’s _Strassburger Tucher-und Weberzunft_ (Strassburg, 1879). Professor G. Des Marez, the learned archivist of Brussels, supplies evidence of the persistence of journeymen’s organisations in Belgium, resembling those of Germany, down to the beginning of the sixteenth century; and of the rise of new ones towards the end of the seventeenth century, without trace of continuity (in _Le Compagnonnage des chapeliers bruxellois_, Brussels, 1909.) See Professor Unwin’s article in _English Historical Review_ (October 1910); and compare _Les Compagnonnages des arts et métiers à Dijon aux xvii^e et xviii^e siècles_, by H. House, 1909, and _Enquêtes sur les associations professionnelles d’artisans et ouvriers en Belgique_, by E. Vandervelde, 1891.

[21] Dr. Brentano’s essay was originally prefixed to Toulmin Smith’s _English Gilds_, published by the Early English Text Society in 1870. It was republished separately as _The History and Development of Gilds and the Origin of Trades Unions_ (135 pp., 1870), and it is to this edition that we refer. Dr. Brentano’s larger work, _Die Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart_ (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1871-72), includes this essay, and also his article in the _North British Review_ for October 1870 on “The Growth of a Trades Union.” It is only fair to say that in this, the ablest study of English Trade Union history down to that time, Dr. Brentano lent no support to the popular idea of any actual descent of the Trade Unions from the gilds. The _Cobden Club Essays_ (1872) contain a good article on Trade Unions, by Joseph Gostick, in which it is argued that these associations were, in England, unknown before the eighteenth century, and had no connection with the gilds.

[22] Page 102.

[23] The first hundred pages of George Howell’s _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_ (first edition, 1877; second edition, 1890) are a close paraphrase of Dr. Brentano’s essay, practically the whole of which appears, often in the same words, as Howell’s own. But already in 1871 Dr. Brentano, in his _Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart_ (vol. i. ch. iii. p. 83), expressly connected the Trade Unions, like Schanz, not with the gilds, but with the Journeymen Fraternities, which he suggests may have “awaked under changed circumstances to new strength and life, and to a new policy.” We gather that Sir William Ashley inclines to this view. “My own impression,” he says, “is that we shall by and by find that, like the usages of the German journeymen in the eighteenth century that centred into Herbergen, the trade clubs of eighteenth century England were broken-down survivals from an earlier period, undergoing, with the advent of the married journeyman and other causes, the slow transformation from which they emerged in the nineteenth century as the nuclei of the modern Trade Union.” Sir William Ashley does not assert that any continuity of organisation can be proved. “What is suggested is only that the habit of acting together in certain ways, which we find to characterise the journeymen of the eighteenth century, had been formed in a much earlier period” (_Surveys: Historic and Economic_, by Sir William Ashley, 1900).

[24] So long as the Companies continued to exercise any jurisdiction over their trades, we find them (as in the cases of the London Framework-knitters and the Dublin Silkweavers) supported by any workmen’s combinations that existed. In exceptional instances, such as the London Brushmakers, Basketmakers, and Watermen, we find this alliance for the exclusion of “illegal men” continuing into the nineteenth century, and (as regards the Watermen) down to the present time.

[25] _Macmillan’s Magazine_ (February 1861), relying on the Social Science _Report on Trade Societies and Strikes_ (1860), p. 521.

[26] See Appendix _On the Assumed Connection between the Trade Unions and the Gilds in Dublin_.

[27] _Gilds and Trade Unions_ (1870), p. 54.

[28] _History of Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 310. Dr. Gross, in his _Gild Merchant_, apparently takes a similar view.

[29] See his _Introduction to Economic History and Theory_, vol. i. (1891); vol. ii. (1893); see also his _Surveys: Historic and Economic_ (1900).

[30] Dr. Brentano himself makes this clear. “We must not forget that these gilds were not unions of labourers in the present sense of the word, but of persons who, with the help of some stock, carried on their craft on their own account. The gild contests were, consequently, not contests for acquiring political equality for labour and property, but for the recognition of political equality of trade stock and real property in the towns” (_Gilds and Trade Unions_, p. 73).

[31] Jupp’s _History of the Carpenters’ Company_, p. 313, second edition, 1848. In certain cases we see the workmen seeking incorporation as a gild or company, in order that they might themselves lawfully regulate their trades. Thus, in 1670 the wage-earning woodsawyers of the City of London, who were employed by the members of the Carpenters’, Joiners’ and Shipwrights’ Companies, formally applied to the Corporation to be made a Company. Their employers strongly objected, alleging that they had already by combination raised their wages during the past quarter of a century from 5s. to nearly 10s. per load; that they were only day labourers who worked on material provided by their employers, and consequently not entitled to rank as masters; and that if their combination were recognised by incorporation they would be able to bring the whole building trade to a standstill, as experience had already demonstrated even without incorporation. Moreover, their main object, it was alleged, was to exclude from employment “all that sort of labourers who daily resort to the City of London and parts adjacent, and by that means keep the wages and prices of these sorts of labourers at an equal and indifferent rate; and then success would be an evil precedent, all other labourers, the masons, bricklayers, plasterers, etc., having the same reason to allege for incorporation” (_Ibid._ p. 307). The London coal-porters in 1699 unsuccessfully petitioned the House of Commons that a Bill might be passed to establish them as “a Fellowship in such government and rules as shall be thought meet” (House of Commons Journals, vol. xiii. p. 69). Professor Unwin suggests that it was “by its failure along these traditional lines” that “the wage-earning class was driven into secret combinations, from the obscurity of which the Trade Union did not emerge till the 19th century” (_Industrial Organisation in the 16th and 17th Centuries_, 1904).

[32] “The Trade Union of to-day is often spoken of as the lineal descendant of the ancient Craft Gilds. There is, however, no direct or indirect connection between the ancient and modern forms of trade combination. Beyond the fact that they each had for their objects the establishment of certain trade regulations, and the provision of certain similar benefits, they had nothing in common.” “Trade Unions as a Means of Improving the Conditions of Labour,” by John Burnett; published in _The Claims of Labour_ (Edinburgh, 1886).

“To attempt to find an immediate connection between the Gild and the Trade Union is like attempting to derive the English House of Commons from the Saxon Witanagemot. In the one case as in the other the two institutions were separated by centuries of development, and the earlier one was dead before the later one was born” (_Industrial Organisation in the 16th and 17th Centuries_, by Professor George Unwin, 1904, p. 8).

[33] Goldasti’s _Constitutiones Imperiales_, tom. iv. p. 189, quoted by Dr. Brentano, p. 60.

[34] A pamphlet of 1669 contains what appears at first sight to be a mention of Trade Unionism. “The general conspiracy amongst artificers and labourers is so apparent that within these twenty-five years the wages of joiners, bricklayers, carpenters, etc., are increased, I mean within 40 miles of London (against all reason and good government), from eighteen and twenty pence a day, to 2/6 and 3/-, and mere labourers from 10 and 12 pence a day unto 16 and 20 pence, and this not since the dreadful fire of London only, but some time before. A journeyman shoemaker has now in London (and proportionately in the country) 14 pence for making that pair of shoes, which within these 12 years he made for 10 pence.... Nor has the increase of wages amongst us been occasioned by quickness of trade and want of hands (as some do suppose) which are indeed justifiable reasons, but through an exacting humour and evil disposition in our people (like our Gravesend watermen, who by some temporary and mean pretences of the late Dutch war, have raised their ferry double to what it was, and finding the sweet thereof, keep it up still), that so they may live the better above their station, and work so much the fewer days by how much the more they exact in their wages” (_Usury at Six Per Cent. Examined_, by Thomas Manley, London, 1669). But we cannot infer from this unique and ambiguous passage anything more than the possibility of ephemeral combinations. It is significant that Defoe, with all his detailed description of English industry in 1724, does not mention any combinations of workmen.

[35] In an able pamphlet dated 1681, entitled _The Trade of England Revived_, it is stated that “we cannot make our English cloth so cheap as they do in other countries, because of the strange idleness and stubbornness of our poor,” who insist on excessive wages. But the author attributes this state of things, not to the existence of combinations, of which he seems never to have heard, but to the Poor Law and the prevalence of almsgiving.

[36] _Wealth of Nations_, bk. i. ch. x. p. 59 of McCulloch’s edition, 1863. In an operative’s description, dated 1809, of the gatherings of the Paisley weavers, we see the Trade Union in the making. “The Paisley operatives are of a free, communicative disposition. They are fond to inform one another in anything respecting trade, and in order to receive information in a collective capacity they have, for a long course of years, associated in a friendly manner in societies denominated clubs.... When met the first hour is devoted to reading the daily newspapers out aloud.... At nine o’clock the chairman calls silence; then the report of trade is heard. The chairman reports first what he knows or what he has heard of such a manufacturing house or houses, as wishing to engage operatives for such fabric or fabrics; likewise the price, the number of the yarn, etc. Then each reports as he is seated; so in the period of an hour not only the state of the trade is known, but any difference that has taken place between manufacturers and operatives” (_An Answer to Mr. Carlile’s Sketches of Paisley_, by William Taylor, Paisley, 1809, pp. 15-17).

[37] See Dunning’s account of the origin of the Consolidated Society of Bookbinders in 1779-80, in the Social Science Association’s _Report on Trade Societies_, 1860, p. 93; also _Workers on their Industries_, edited by F. W. Galton, 1895; _Women in the Printing Trades_, edited by J. R. MacDonald, 1904, p. 30.

[38] _Articles of Agreement made and confirmed by a Society of Taylors, begun March 25, 1760_ (London, 1812). In 1790 Francis Place joined the Breeches Makers’ Benefit Society “for the support of the members when sick and their burial when dead”--its real object being to support the members “in a strike for wages” (_Life of Francis Place_, by Professor Graham Wallas, new edition, 1918). Local friendly societies giving sick pay and providing for funeral expenses had sprung up all over England during the eighteenth century. Towards its close their number seems to have rapidly increased until, in some parts at any rate, every village ale-house became a centre for one or more of these humble and spontaneous organisations. The rules of upwards of a hundred of these societies, dating between 1750 and 1820, and all centred round Newcastle-on-Tyne, are preserved in the British Museum. At Nottingham, in 1794, fifty-six of these clubs joined in the annual procession (_Nottingham Journal_, June 14, 1794). So long as they were composed indiscriminately of men of all trades, it is probable that no distinctively Trade Union action could arise from their meetings. But in some cases, for various reasons, such as high contributions, migratory habits, or the danger of the calling, the sick and burial club was confined to men of a particular trade. This kind of friendly society frequently became a Trade Union. Some societies of this type can trace their existence for nearly a century and a half. The Glasgow coopers, for instance, have had a local trade friendly society, confined to journeymen coopers, ever since 1752. The London Sailmakers Burial Society dates from 1740. The Newcastle shoemakers established a similar society as early as 1719 (_Observations upon the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the laws respecting Friendly Societies_, by the Rev. J. T. Becher, Prebendary of Southwell, 1826). On the occurrence of any dispute with the employers their funds, as this contemporary observer in another pamphlet deplores, “have also too frequently been converted into engines of abuse by paying weekly sums to artisans out of work, and have thereby encouraged combinations among workmen not less injurious to the misguided members than to the Public Weal” (_Observations on the Rise and Progress of Friendly Societies_, 1824, p. 55). Similar friendly societies among workmen of particular trades appear to have existed in the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where they perhaps bridged the gap between the mediæval fraternities and the modern Trade Unions (see review in the _English Historical Review_, October 1918, of P. J. Blok’s _Geschiedenes einer Hollandischen Stad_).

[39] Schanz (_Gesellenverbände_, p. 25) follows Brentano (p. 94) in attributing the formation of journeymen’s fraternities in the Middle Ages mainly to a desire to provide for the wandering craftsmen. The connection between the “Herbergen” or “Schenken,” designed to find lodging and employment, with the journeymen’s associations was certainly close. (See Dr. Bruno Schoenlank’s article in 1894, quoted in Sir William Ashley’s _Surveys: Historic and Economic_, 1900.) It may be suggested that the contrast between the absence or scanty existence of such fraternities in England and their spread in Germany is, perhaps, to be ascribed in some measure to the fact that English journeymen seem never to have adopted the German custom of “Wanderjahre,” or regular habit of spending, on completing their apprenticeship, a few years in travelling about the country to complete their training. When the local privileges of the old gilds had fallen somewhat into abeyance, the restrictions of the successive Settlement Acts must in England, to some extent, have checked the mobility of labour. But, from the beginning of the eighteenth century at any rate, we find it customary for journeymen of certain trades--it is to be noticed that these are relatively new trades in England--to “tramp” from town to town in search of work, and the description, subsequently quoted, of the organisations of the woolcombers and worsted weavers in 1741, shows that the relief of these travelling journeymen was a prominent object of the early unions. The hatters in the middle of the eighteenth century had a regular arrangement for such relief. The compositors at the very beginning of the nineteenth century had already covered the country with a network of local clubs, the chief function of which appears to have been the facilitation of this wandering in search of work. And the calico-printers had a systematic way of issuing a ticket which entitled the tramp to collect from each journeyman, in any “print-field” that he visited, at first a voluntary contribution, and latterly a fixed relief of a halfpenny per head in England, and a penny per head in Scotland (_Minutes of evidence taken before the Committee to whom the petition of the several journeymen Calico-printers and others working in that trade, etc., was referred_, July 4, 1804, and the _Report_ from that Committee, July 17, 1806).

[40] J. M. Ludlow, in article in _Macmillan’s Magazine_, February 1861.

[41] _Work and the Workman_, by Dr. J. K. Ingram (Address to the Trades Union Congress at Dublin, 1880).

[42] Benjamin Franklin mentions the “chapel” and its regulations in 1725. A copy, dated 1734, of the _Rules and Orders to be observed by the Members of this Chapel: by Compositors, by Pressmen, by Both_, is preserved in the Place MSS. 27799--88.

[43] This petition (in the British Museum) is printed in Brentano’s _Gilds and Trade Unions_, p. 97. Benjamin Franklin, who worked in London printing offices in 1725, makes no mention of Trade Unionism. The Stationers’ Company continued, so far as the City of London was concerned, to regulate apprenticeship; and we see it, in 1775, taking steps to prevent employers having an undue number. Regulations agreed to by the employers and the compositors, as to the rates of pay for different kinds of work, can be traced back to 1785, at least. A copy of the rules of “The Phœnix, or Society of Compositors” meeting at “The Hole in the Wall” tavern, Fleet Street, shows that this organisation was “instituted March 12th, 1792.” In 1798 five members of the “Pressmen’s Friendly Society” were indicted for conspiracy in meeting for the purpose of restricting the number of apprentices (they sought to limit them to three for seven presses). Although the secretary to the “Society of Master Printers” had requested these men to attend the meeting, in order to get settled the pending dispute, they were convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment (_Conflicts of Capital and Labour_, by George Howell, 1890, p. 92).

[44] For this interesting case we are indebted to Professor George Unwin’s researches in the records of the Feltmakers’ Company, whose “Court Book” contains the record. See _Industrial Organisation in the 16th and 17th Centuries_, by George Unwin, 1904; “A Seventeenth-Century Trade Union,” by the same, in _Economic Journal_, 1910, pp. 394-403; the chapter “Mediæval Journeymen’s Clubs” in Sir William Ashley’s _Surveys, Historic and Economic_, 1900.

[45] House of Commons Journals, vol. xxxvi.; 8 Eliz. c. 11; 1 James I. c. 14; and 17 George III. c. 55; Place MSS. 27799--68; Committee on Artisans and Machinery, 1824; _Industrial Democracy_, p. 11; “A Seventeenth Century Trade Union,” by Professor George Unwin, in _Economic Journal_, 1910, pp. 394-403; _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_, by G. Howell, 1890, p. 83. The organisation evidently continued in existence, at least in its local form; but the existing national “Journeymen Hatters’ Trade Union of Great Britain and Ireland” claims to date only from 1798. In 1806 the Macclesfield hatters were indicted for conspiracy in striking for higher wages, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. Particulars of this organisation will be found in _The Trial of W. Davenport ... Hatters of Macclesfield for a Conspiracy against their Masters_ ... by Thomas Mulineaux, 1806.

[46] For the whole history of this industry, see _The Tailoring Trade_, by F. W. Galton, 1896.

[47] _The London Tradesman_, by Campbell, 1747, p. 192.

[48] _The Trade of England Revived_, 1681, p. 36.

[49] House of Commons Journals, vol. xix. pp. 416, 424, 481; _The Case of the Master Taylors residing within the Cities of London and Westminster, in relation to the great abuses committed by their journeymen_; _An Abstract of the Master Taylors’ Bill before the Honourable House of Commons, with the Journeymen’s Observation on each clause of the said Bill_; _The Case of the Journeymen Taylors residing in the Cities of London and Westminster_ (all 1720). These and other documents relating to combinations in this trade have now been published in a useful volume (_The Tailoring Trade_, by F. W. Galton, 1896), with an elaborate bibliography.

[50] _London_, by David Hughson (1821), pp. 392-3; House of Commons Journals, vol. xxiv. Place MSS. 27799, pp. 4, 5. _The Case of the Journeymen Taylors in and about the Cities of London and Westminster_ (January 7, 1745).

[51] _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1750, 1768.

[52] Place MSS. 27799--10; see _The Life of Francis Place, 1771-1854_, by Professor Graham Wallas, 1898; second edition, 1918. There is evidence of very similar organisation in other towns. At Birmingham, for instance, there was a systematically organised strike in 1777 against a reduction of wages, which lasted for some months (Langford’s _Century of Birmingham Life_, pp. 225, etc.; _The Tailoring Trade_, by F. W. Galton, 1896).

[53] _A Declaration of the Estate of Clothing now used within this Realme of England_, by John May, Deputy Alnager (1613, 51 pp., in B.M. 712, g. 16), a volume which contains many interesting pamphlets on the woollen manufacture between 1613 and 1753. Already in 1622, a year of depression of trade, we hear of numerous riots and tumults among the weavers of the West of England, notably those of certain Devonshire towns, who paraded the streets demanding work or food (_Quarter Sessions from Elizabeth to Anne_, by A. H. A. Hamilton, 1878, pp. 95-6). But there is as yet no evidence of durable combinations at so early a date.

[54] MS. Minutes, Court Book of the Clothworkers’ Company, December 10, 1675; August 16, 1682; _Industrial Organisation of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_, by George Unwin, 1904, p. 199.

[55] _History of Tiverton_, by Martin Dunsford (Exeter, 1790).

[56] House of Commons Journals, vol. xviii. p. 715, February 5, 1717. Tiverton and Exeter petition to the same effect.

[57] Hughson’s _London_, p. 337. The proclamation was reprinted in _Notes and Queries_, September 21, 1867, from a copy preserved by the Sun Fire Office.

[58] See the petitions from Exeter and Dartmouth, February 24, 1723, vol. xx. pp. 268-9; and those from Taunton, Tiverton, Exeter, and Bristol, March 3 and 7, 1725, vol. xx. pp. 598, 602, 648. In 1729 the Bristol weavers, “while the corporation was at church,” riotously attacked the house of an obnoxious employer, and had to be repulsed by the troops (_History of Bristol_, p. 261, by J. Evans; Bristol, 1824). In 1738 they forced the clothiers to sign a bond that they would “for ever forward” give fifteen pence a yard for weaving, under penalty of £1000 (_Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1738, p. 658; see also “An Essay on Riots, their Causes and Cure,” published in the _Gloucester Journal_, and reprinted in the _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1739, pp. 7-10). In 1756 there was an extensive and serious uprising (see _A State of the Case and Narrative of Facts relating to the late Commotion and Rising of the Weavers in the County of Gloucester_, in the Gough Collection, Bodleian Library).

[59] Defoe’s _Tour_, vol. iii. pp. 97-101, 116 (1724). John Bright mentions his father’s apprenticeship, about 1789, to “a most worthy man who had a few acres of ground, a very small farm, and three or four looms in his house” (speech reported in _Beehive_, February 2, 1867). For a less optimistic account of the Yorkshire clothiers, who were, even in the seventeenth century, often mere wage-earners, see Cartwright’s _Chapters of Yorkshire History_.

[60] _History of Leicester_, by James Thompson, 1849, pp. 431-2.

[61] _A Short Essay upon Trade in General_, by “A Lover of his Country,” 1741, quoted in James’ _History of the Worsted Manufacture in England_, p. 232.

[62] See, in corroboration, _Leicester Herald_, August 24, 1793; _Morning Chronicle_, October 13, 1824; Place MSS., 27801--246, 247.

[63] The Dublin silk-weavers, owing perhaps to their having been largely Huguenot refugees in a Roman Catholic town, appear to have been associated from the early part of the eighteenth century; see, for instance, _The Case of the Silk and Worsted Weavers in a Letter to a Member of Parliament_ (Dublin, 1749, 8 pp.). Compare _A Short Historical Account of the Silk Manufacture in England_, by Samuel Sholl, 1811, and _Industrial Dublin since 1698 and the Silk Industry in Dublin_, by J. J. Webb, 1913.

[64] The condition of the framework knitters may be gathered from the elaborate Parliamentary Inquiry, the proceedings of which fill fifteen pages of the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxvi., April 19, 1753. See also vols. xxxvi. and xxxvii., and the Report from the Committee on Framework Knitters’ Petitions, 1812; and _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_, by G. Howell, 1890. Felkin’s _History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures_, 1867, contains an exhaustive account of the trade, founded on Gravener Henson’s _History of the Framework Knitters_, 1831, now a scarce work, of which only one volume was published.

[65] _Sheffield Iris_, August 7 and September 9, 1790. The Scissorsmiths’ Friendly Society, cited by Dr. Brentano, was established in April 1791. Other trade friendly societies in Sheffield appear to date from a much earlier period.

[66] Sir J. A. Picton’s _Memorials of Liverpool_, 1875; _A Digest of the Evidence before the Committee on Artizans and Machinery_, by George White, 1824, p. 233; _Conflicts of Labour and Capital_, by G. Howell, 1890, pp. 82-3.

[67] _Report of Committee on the Woollen Manufacture_, 1806, p. 16; see also _Conflicts of Labour and Capital_, by G. Howell, 1890.

[68] See Chapter III.

[69] In volume entitled _Tracts Relating to Trade_, in British Museum, 816, m. 13. Tankard-bearers were water carriers.

[70] _Reasons against the designed leather impositions on gloves_, B.M. 816, m. 13.

[71] We shall have occasion later to refer to the absence of effective Trade Unionism in those trades which are still carried on by small working masters.

[72] The assumption frequently made that the Craft Gilds, at their best period, included practically the whole working population, appears to us unfounded. The gild system at no time extended to any but the skilled handicraftsmen, alongside of whom must always have worked a large number of unapprenticed labourers, who received less than half the wages of the craftsmen. We venture to suggest that it is doubtful whether the Craft Gilds at any time numbered as large a proportion of the working population as the Trade Unions of the present day. See _Industrial Democracy_, p. 480.

[73] “Tumults,” or strikes, among the coal-miners are occasionally mentioned during the eighteenth century, but no lasting combinations. See, for those in Somerset, Carmarthenshire, etc., in 1757, _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1757, pp. 90, 185, 285, etc. In 1765 there was a prolonged strike against the “yearly bond” by the Durham miners (_Calendar of Home Office Papers_, 1765; Sykes’ _Local Records_, vol. i, p. 254). The Keelmen, who loaded coals on the Tyne, “mutinied” in 1654 and 1671 “for the increase of wages”; and there were fierce strikes in 1710, 1744, 1750, 1771, and 1794. We have, however, no particulars as to their associations, which were probably ephemeral (Sykes’ _Local Records_; Richardson’s _Local Historian’s Table Book_; _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1750).

[74] Many instances of insolence and aggression by the woolcombers are on record; the employers’ advertisements in the _Nottingham Journal_, August 31, 1795, and the _Leicester Herald_ of June 1792, are only two out of many similar recitals.

[75] _Jubilee Souvenir History of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers_, 1901, p. 12.

[76] That such clubs were common in the handicraft trades in London as early as 1720 appears from the following extract from _The Case of the Master Taylors residing within the Cities of London and Westminster_, a petition which led to the Act of 1720: “This combination of the Journeymen Taylors ... is of very ill example to Journeymen in all other trades; as is sufficiently seen in the Journeymen Curriers, Smiths, Farriers, Sailmakers, Coachmakers, and artificers of divers other arts and mysteries, who have actually entered into Confederacies of the like nature; and the Journeymen Carpenters, Bricklayers, and Joyners have taken some steps for that purpose, and only wait to see the event of others.” And the Journeymen Tailors in their petition of 1745 allude to the large number of “Monthly Clubs” among the London handicraftsmen. With regard to the curriers at this date, see Place MSS, 27801--246, 247.

It may be conveniently noticed here that, although strikes are, as we have seen, as old as the fourteenth century at least, the word “strike” was not commonly used in this sense until the latter part of the eighteenth century. The Oxford Dictionary gives the first instance of its use as in 1768, when the _Annual Register_ refers to the hatters having “struck” for a rise in wages. The derivation appears to be from the sailors’ term of “striking” the mast, thus bringing the movement to a stop.

[77] So much is this the case that Dr. Brentano asserts that “Trade Unions originated with the non-observance of” the Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices (p. 104), and that their primary object was, in all cases, the enforcement of the law on the subject.

[78] Preamble to “An Act touching Weavers” (2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. xi.); see Froude’s _History of England_, vol. i. pp. 57-9; and W. C. Taylor’s _Modern Factory System_, pp. 53-5.

[79] As expanded by 1 James I. c. 6 and 16 Car. I. c. 4; see R. _v._ Justices of Kent, 14 East, 395.

[80] See on these points, Dr. Cunningham’s _History of English Industry and Commerce_, Mr. Hewins’ _English Trade and Finance chiefly in the 17th Century_, and Thorold Rogers’ _History of Agriculture and Prices_, vol. v. pp. 625-6, etc. Adam Smith observes that the fixing of wages had, in 1776, “gone entirely into disuse” (_Wealth of Nations_, bk. i. ch. x. p. 65), a statement broadly true, although formal determinations of wages are found in the MS. Minutes of Quarter Sessions for another half century.

[81] This forms the constant refrain of the numerous broadsheets or _Tracts relating to Trade_ of 1688-1750, which are preserved in the British Museum, the Guildhall Library, and in the Goldsmith Company’s Library at the University of London.

[82] Privy Council Minutes of 1726, p. 310 (unpublished); see also House of Commons Journals, vol. xx. p. 745 (February 20, 1726).

[83] Privy Council Minutes, February 4, 1726.

[84] House of Commons Journals, vol. xix. p. 181 (December 5, 1719).

[85] Petition of “Several weavers of Woollen Broadcloth on behalf of themselves and several thousands of the Fraternity of Woollen Broadcloth Weavers” (House of Commons Journals, vol. xxvii. p. 503; see also pp. 730-2).

[86] 22 Geo. II. c. 27.

[87] 29 Geo. II. c. 33.

[88] _Report of Committee on Petitions of West of England Clothiers_, House of Commons Journals, vol. xxvii. pp. 730-2.

[89] For all these proceedings, see House of Commons Journals, vol. xxvii.

[90] House of Commons Journals, vol. xxxvi. p. 7 (November 1, 1776).

[91] House of Commons Journals, April 13 and 19, 1753, vol. xxvi. pp. 764, 779; Felkin’s _History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture_, p. 80; Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times_, 1903, vol. i. p. 663.

[92] _Gilds and Trade Unions_, pp. 115-21.

[93] House of Commons Journals, vols. xxxvi. and xxxvii.

[94] House of Commons Journals, vol. xxxvi. pp. 192, 240, 268, 287, 1777; Act 17 Geo. III. c. 55, repealing 8 Eliz. c. 11, and 1 Jac. 1.

[95] 5 Geo. III. c. 48; see _Annual Register_, 1765, p. 41; Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times_, 1903, pp. 519, 796.

[96] Act 13 Geo. III. c. 68; see _A Short Historical Account of the Silk Manufacture in England_, by Samuel Sholl, 1811.

[97] _Ibid._ p. 4.

[98] _Reports on Petitions of Cotton Weavers, 1809 and 1811._

[99] “The period between 1795 and 1815 was characterised by dearths which on several occasions became well-nigh famines” (Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, vol. i. p. 692).

[100] _Minutes of Evidence and Report of the Committee on the Petition of the Journeymen Calico-printers_, July 4, 1804, July 17, 1806. See also Sheridan’s speech reported in Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. ix. pp. 534-8.

[101] 43 Geo. III. c. 136, continued in successive years until the definite repeal, in 1809, of most of the laws regulating the woollen manufacture by 49 Geo. III. c. 109; see Cunningham, 1903, vol. ii. p. 659.

[102] It was reprinted in the 121st Quarterly Report of the Amalgamated Society of Boot and Shoemakers. The proceedings were taken by the Friendly Society of Cordwainers of England, “instituted the 15th of November 1784.” Particulars of the London Bootmakers’ Society, which was in correspondence with seventy or eighty provincial societies, are given in _A Digest of the Evidence before the Committee on Artizans and Machinery_, by George White, 1824, p. 97.

[103] Professor Foxwell kindly placed at our disposal a unique series of pamphlets relating to these proceedings, which are now in the Goldsmiths Company’s Library at the University of London, including the _Memorials_ of the journeymen and the employers, the _Report in the Process_ by Robert Bell, and the _Scale of Prices_ as settled by the Court. A full account of the proceedings is given in the _Scottish Typographical Circular_, June 1858.

[104] See, for these proceedings, the two _Reports of the Committee on the Petitions of the Cotton Weavers_, April 12, 1808, and March 29, 1809; and Richmond’s evidence before the Committee on Artisans and Machinery, 1824, Second Report, pp. 59-64.

[105] It is now in the British Library of Political Science at the London School of Economics.

[106] R. _v._ Justices of Kent, 14 East, 395; see F. D. Longe’s _Inquiry into the Law of Strikes_, 1860, pp. 10, 11.

[107] 53 Geo. III. c. 40 (1813).

[108] The Spitalfields Acts, relating to the silkweavers, were, however, not repealed until 1824; and the last sections of 5 Eliz. c. 4 were not formally repealed until 1875.

[109] White’s _Digest of all the laws at present in existence respecting Masters and Workpeople_, 1824, p. 59. Place wrote to Wakefield, January 2, 1814: “The affair of Serjeant Onslow partly originated with me, but I had no suspicion it would be taken up and pushed as vigorously as it has been and is likely to be” (_Life of Francis Place_, by Prof. Graham Wallas, p. 159).

The proceedings in this matter can be best traced in the House of Commons Journals for 1813 and 1814, vols. lxviii. and lxix.; and in Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, vols. xxv. and xxvii. The master’s case is given in a pamphlet, _The Origin, Object, and Operation of the Apprentice Laws_, 1814, 26 pp., preserved in the _Pamphleteer_, vol. iii. _The Resolutions of the Master Manufacturers and Tradesmen of the Cities of London and Westminster on the Statute 5 Eliz. c. 4_, 1814, 4 pp., gives the contrary view (B.M. 1882, d. 2). The contemporary argument for freedom is expressed in _An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain_, by G. Chalmers, 1810; see _Cunningham_, 1903, vol. ii. p. 660. The Nottingham Library possesses a unique copy of the _Articles and General Regulations of a Society for obtaining Parliamentary Relief, and the Encouragement of Mechanics in the Improvement of Mechanism_, printed at Nottingham in 1813. This appears to have been a federation of framework knitters’ societies, and possibly others, for Parliamentary action, as well as trade protection; and its establishment in 1813 was perhaps connected with the movement for the revival of the Apprenticeship Laws.

[110] _Report of the Committee on the State of the Woollen Manufacture in England_, July 4, 1806, p. 12.