ABSTRACT
Trade unions were necessary to protect workers from having to sell their labour at a price below its true value because of their urgent need for money to buy food and necessities. The essence of union strategy, then, lay in its control over the short-term supply of labour, and more especially, over the unemployed. The strike allowance had to be adequate to meet two contingencies: to induce members to quit their situations when called upon to do so by the society, and to prevent them from drifting back into ‘unfair’ offices when the excitement of the original dispute had abated. In London the function of the Society Call Book was to some extent usurped by the Gifts, the exclusive associations of compositors or pressmen which had arisen about the middle of the century. A Typographical Emigration Society was established in 1852, but it lasted only one year, and sent off only fourteen emigrants.
