Rules and Regulations of the Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union of Great Britain and Ireland: Instituted for the Purpose of More Effectually Enabling the Working Classes to Secure, Protect, and Establish the Rights of Industry (London: Harjette and Saville, 1834)

In February 1833, spurred by Robert Owen’s increasing support for trade unions as a means to implement economic co-operation, a group of Owenite tailors from London set up the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU). According to its Rules and Regulations, the new union was not merely intended as an instrument of working-class relief, but as a means to bring about “a different state of things”, in which co-operation between workers and employers would not only end capitalist exploitation, but pave the way for the regeneration of mankind. Owen joined the GNCTU in April 1834 and became its chairman, but his gradualism found itself increasingly at odds with the rank-and-file’s openness to industrial action. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, who were affiliated to the GNCTU, were unlawfully transported to Australia, and syndicalist activities in the spring and summer of 1834 were heavily repressed. Owen officially dissolved the union in the winter of that same year.