ABSTRACT
The continuous history of Trade Unionism in Great Britain dates from the early years of the nineteenth century. There were Trade Unions long before that; but no continuous record of their activities has been preserved. Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was becoming common for journeymen to combine for the protection of their crafts against interlopers and for the maintenance of their trade customs and standards of wages and conditions of work. In 1799 and 1800, the Government, disposed in its fear of the French Revolution to regard all forms of working-class organisation as potential centres of rebellion, passed the Combination Acts, and thus declared every sort of Trade Union to be a criminal conspiracy. When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, there was a sharp fall in prices, accompanied by a collapse of industry and a great growth of unemployment in many trades.
