ABSTRACT
Whatever part the Derbyshire miners may have played in this and similar organizations the various attempts at "General Union" between 1818 and 1834 ended in failure and it was left to miners in other parts of the country to develop an industrial union. Under the leadership of Martin Jude, it developed an extensive propagandist activity, at one time employing no less than fifty-three organizers, who visited every coalfield in the country. The importance of the incursion of the Miners Association into Derbyshire, from the point of view of trade union organization, was that it provided, for the first time, a focus for the various local grievances which existed in the coalfield. After the collapse of the Miners Association there was no serious attempt at trade union organization among the Derbyshire miners until the sixties.
