[291]Some account of these developments will be found in The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain, by Beatrice Potter (Mrs. Sidney Webb).
[292]The collapse was duly reported to the Home Secretary (Home Office Papers, 40—33, 34, 35).
[293]See Ashworth’s paper before British Association, 1837; Remarks upon the Importance of an Inquiry into the Amount and Appropriation of Wages by the Working Classes, by W. Felkin, 1837; Appeal to the Public from the United Trades of Preston, February 14, 1837 (in Home Office Papers, 40—35).
[294]The United Society of Operative Plumbers (reorganised 1848) still dominates its branch of the trade, and retains traces of the federal constitution of the Builders’ Union. The sister organisation of carpenters (now styled the General Union of Carpenters and Joiners) has been overtaken and overshadowed by the newer Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners; whilst the Operative Bricklayers’ Society has absorbed practically all the older societies in its own branch of the trade.
[295]Glasgow was still the principal centre of the cotton industry, especially in weaving. In 1838 there were in the Glasgow area about 36,000 handlooms devoted mainly to cotton, with two persons to a loom, whilst in all Lancashire there were only 25,000 (Parliamentary Papers, xlii. of 1849 and xxiv. of 1840; The Chartist Movement, by Mark Hovell, 1918, p. 14). Combination among the cotton operatives of Glasgow was of old standing. After the strike of 1812, already referred to, trouble broke out again in 1820 and 1822, when outrages were committed (Arts and Artisans, by J. G. Symons, 1839, p. 137).
Besides securing full reports in the newspapers, the Trade Union committee conducting the case published at a low price an account of the trial in parts, which has not been preserved. Two other exhaustive reports were issued, and may still be consulted, viz. Report of the trial of Thomas Hunter and other operative cotton-spinners in Glasgow in 1838, by Archibald Swinton (Edinburgh, 1838), and The trial of Thomas Hunter, etc., the Glasgow Cotton-spinners, by James Marshall (Glasgow, 1838). See also the Autobiography of Sir Archibald Alison, 1883; the Northern Star for 1837-8; the Annual Register for 1838, pp. 206-7; and the evidence before the Select Committee on Combinations, 1838. A summary will be found in Howell’s Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour Leaders, 1902, pp. 83-4.
[296]The five prisoners were pardoned in 1840, in consequence of their exemplary conduct. There is a joint letter by them in the Trades Journal for August, 1840, relating to the subscriptions raised for them by a London committee.
[297]Stonemasons’ Fortnightly Circular, January 19, 1838.
[298]Evidence of W. Darcy, the secretary, second report of 1838 Committee, p. 130.
[299]Circular dated March 1, 1838, in Stonemasons’ archives; and An Address from the London Trades Committee appointed to watch the Parliamentary Inquiry into Combinations, 1838.