ABSTRACT
At common law—that is, by the rules of law which judges go by in the absence of definite statutory provisions dealing with the point at issue—a Trade Union is usually a ‘combination in restraint of trade’. In the eighteenth century, when Trade Unions first appeared on a considerable scale, the judges came to hold that most Trade Unions, being in unreasonable restraint of trade and contrary to ‘public policy’, were illegal associations to which it was criminal even to belong. This persecution of Trade Unionism continued until 1824, when, thanks largely to the efforts of Francis Place, the ‘Radical tailor of Charing Cross’, Joseph Hume, the Radical M.P., piloted through Parliament an Act which both repealed the Combination Acts and prevented prosecutions for conspiracy at common law. So far the Trade Unions appeared to have won a complete victory—for no one then anticipated the Taff Vale and Osborne Judgments.
