ABSTRACT
Some two dozen societies which may be broadly described as 'engineering' have organised workers directly concerned to meet the needs for machinery and fittings of one section or another of textile manufacturing. The boundaries of such a description are uncertain, e.g. in respect of engraving, and the list is undoubtedly incomplete, for there is evidence of societies such as the Manchester Mule Spindle Makers which seem not to have found their way on to the more obvious listings. Some of the societies noted below were associated with textile union amalgamations, e.g., the United Roller Coverers with the Card Room Amalgamation; most had no such affiliations, except, perhaps through local Federations or Trades Councils. Most, but not all, were essentially concered with particular textiles in particular localities, for example, the bobbin and carriage unions based on the Nottingham lace trade. Few seem to have been eager to identify themselves as 'engineering', e.g. by affiliating to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, evidently regarding their interests as more directly associated with textiles. When, for lack of numbers if for no other reason, they have been forced to consider their future prospects, they seem usually to have preferred dissolution to amalgamation with some larger organisation. Exceptions have been the Bolton Rollers Makers and the Belfast Hackle and Gill Makers (both to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers), the United Operative Spindle and Flyer Makers Trade and Friendly Society (to the Amalgamated Engineering Union, 1962) and the United Society of Engravers, usually listed among textile finishing (see below) to the Society of Lithographic Artists Designers Engravers and Process Workers in 1973. The only textile engineering societies still in existence in 1993 are the Card Setting Machine Tenters Society and the Sheffield Wool Shear Workers Trade Union, both with a tiny membership.
