[398]The town of Sheffield had long been noted for the custom of “rattening,” that is, the temporary abstraction of the wheelbands or tools of a workman whose subscription to his club was in arrear. This had become the recognised method of enforcing, not merely the payment of contributions, but also compliance with the trade regulations of the club. The lawless summary jurisdiction thus usurped by the Sheffield clubs easily passed into more serious acts of lynch law if mere rattening proved ineffectual. Recalcitrant workmen were terrorised by explosions of cans of gunpowder in the troughs of their grinding wheels, or thrown down their chimneys; and in some cases these explosions caused serious injury. The various Grinders’ Unions (saw, file, sickle, fork, and fender) enjoyed an unhappy notoriety for outrages of this nature, which had, from time to time, aroused the spasmodic indignation of the local press, notably in 1843-4. An attempt, in 1861, to blow up a small warehouse in Acorn Street provoked a special outburst of public disapproval; and the minutes of the London Trades Council record that already on this occasion the Council publicly expressed its abhorrence of such criminal violence. After this date there was for three or four years a diminution in the number of serious acts of violence committed; but the years 1865-6 saw a renewal of the evil practices, especially in connection with the Saw-Grinders’ Union. The explosion in New Hereford Street in October 1866 was afterwards proved to have been instigated by this Union in order to terrorise a certain Thomas Fernehough, who had twice deserted the society, and was at the time working for a firm against whom the saw-handle makers, as well as the saw-grinders, had struck.
[399]Among other societies, the Amalgamated Engineers and Carpenters and the national Unions of Boilermakers and Ironfounders appear to have deposited their rules.
[400]Beehive, January 26, 1867.
[401]Along with these, in helping and advising the Trade Unions at this time, were Vernon Lushington, Godfrey Lushington (afterwards Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department), J. M. Ludlow (afterwards Registrar of Friendly Societies), Neate (formerly Professor of Political Economy and then M.P. for Oxford), Sir T. Fowell Buxton, M.P., and A. J. Mundella.
[402]The Junta did not, however, confine its efforts to action before the Commission. One of the taunts constantly thrown by the press at the Trade Union leaders was that they did not themselves know what they wanted. Partly as a reply to this, but also as a manifesto to consolidate the Unionist forces, in the autumn of 1867 a Bill was prepared by Henry Crompton and laid before the Junta, and after considerable discussion adopted by them and by a delegate meeting of Trades held at the Bell Inn. It was introduced into the House of Commons early in the following session, and served as basis of the Trade Union demand at some of the elections in 1868, notably that of Sheffield when A. J. Mundella first was candidate.
[403]The Broadhead disclosures created a great stir, and Professor Beesly, who had ventured to point out “that a trades union murder was neither better nor worse than any other murder,” was denounced as an apologist for crime, and nearly lost his professorship at University College, London, for his sturdy defence of the principle of Trade Unionism. See his pamphlet, The Sheffield Outrages and the Meeting at Exeter Hall, 1867, 16 pp.; and that by Richard Congreve, Mr. Broadhead and the Anonymous Press, 1867, 16 pp.
[404]Times leader, July 8, 1869. The occasion was the epoch-marking speech of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brassey, in which, speaking as the son of a great contractor, he declared himself on the side of the Trade Unions, and asserted that, by exercising a beneficial influence on the character of the workmen, they tended to lower rather than to raise the cost of labour (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, July 7, 1869). The speech was afterwards republished, with some additions, under the title of Trade Unions and the Cost of Labour, by T. Brassey, 1870, 64 pp.
[405]The Sheffield Outrages and the Royal Commission produced a large crop of literature, most of which is of little value. The Commission itself presented no fewer than eleven reports, with voluminous evidence and appendices. The Examiners appointed to investigate the outrages at Sheffield and Manchester presented separate reports, which were laid before Parliament. The mass of detailed information about strikes and other proceedings of Trade Societies contained in these reports has been the main source of all subsequent writings on the subject. The Trade Unions of England, by the Comte de Paris, 1869, 246 pp., and The Trade Unions, by Robert Somers (Edinburgh, 1876, 232 pp.), are, for instance, little better than summaries, the former friendly, the latter unfriendly, of the evidence before the Commission. The chapters relating to Trade Unionism in W. T. Thornton’s work On Labour, 1870, which made so permanent an impression on the economic world, are entirely based upon the same testimony. Among other publications may be mentioned Trades Unions Defended, by W. R. Callender (Manchester, 1870, 16 pp.); and Measures for Putting an End to the Abuses of Trades Unions, by Frederic Hill, 1868, 16 pp.
[406]Report of the Trades Conference, 1867, 32 pp.
[407]Beehive, June 13, 1868.