My maternal grandfather was a trade union official. Sadly, I didn’t ask him enough questions as a child and don’t know for sure what union he was in but as he was a lithographic artist, I suspect that it was the Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers and Engravers which was founded in 1885 and dissolved in 1982 when it merged with the National Graphical Association. The union originated in Manchester, where my grandfather lived, although I understand its headquarters relocated to London in 1919. It was formed to protect the livelihoods of its members and to advocate for fair wages during a time of significant technological change. Its core objectives were securing fair pay and work conditions and protecting the journeymen from being displaced by cheaper, unskilled assistants. It was also involved in the regulation of apprentices to ensure that there were not too many and that that they were trained to a minimum standard. In addition, it promoted new technologies and helped its members get knowledge, training, and experience in the use of them.
Many of these aims and objectives seem very similar to modern day trade unions, and indeed, if one looks down through the history books, to Roman times, and even earlier, to the time of the pyramids, people have grouped together in differing ways to protect their trades, their employment, and their families. For example, around 1155 BC artisans, in the Egyptian town of Deir el-Medina, in the time of Pharaoh Ramses III, laid down their tools to complain about their lack of promised pay, and eventually received payment (Sarah E Bond, 2025)[1].
Before the trade unions, there were guilds, which were associations of craftsmen, merchants or professionals who united to protect their mutual interests, regulate trade standards, and share specialised knowledge. They rigidly controlled the quality of goods and worker output through a structured hierarchy. Apprentices were bound to a master for several years, while journeymen were skilled workers who travelled and worked for various masters to perfect their craft. Then there were the masters, artisans who owned their own shops and were allowed to train others. The members of the guild pooled resources, strictly to pay for collective worship, charity, and burial services for fellow members. Over time they developed into economic trade networks. Guilds in some form or another have been around since the times of the Anglo-Saxons.
Prior to the guild system, were the Roman collegia, legally recognized groups of people in the same craft trade or religious organisation. They had a system of shared finances which, similarly to guilds, paid for member funerals and financial assistance, however unlike the independent medieval guilds, the late Roman collegia were heavily controlled by the imperial state and had a strong hereditary element.
Following the collapse of Rome this collegia system vanished in Western Europe and a more decentralised system of wandering traders became more common. Due to their fear of bandits and other dangers on the road, these merchants banded together for mutual support, and this gradually grew over time into the powerful Merchant Guilds.
The guild system was supposed to support the workers as well as the merchants. However, as trade improved, many of the merchants, became more interested in ensuring that their wealth was maintained, rather than the welfare of the apprentices and journeymen in their charge. As a result of this, in the early 18thcentury, some of the journeymen started to group together in Secret Societies to try and obtain better conditions, career structure, and wages. By the end of the 18th century many of these groups had grown into official trade unions.
In 1820, when Eilidh Ruadh, the main character in the Dragonseyrie Series, was a young woman, trade unions in Britain were illegal. The Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 stated that any combination of 2 or more masters or two or more workmen grouping together to discuss work conditions or changes to wages, was punishable in law. They were brought in as an attempt to stop workers from banding together and causing a disturbance – after all, the French Revolution had just ended in 1799! They were not repealed until 1824.
In order to get round these laws, the workers banded together as mutual aid organizations, called Friendly Societies. In 1793, parliament passed a Friendly Societies Act, to encourage groups to band together to collectively provide money for sick relief and funerals. Registering as a Friendly Society enabled people to meet, ostensibly for social and societal reasons, but also to discuss and share their concerns for social justice, to hear what other groups were saying and planning and to organise more active agitation for changes to the law, to promote equality for all.
The guilds, those ancient institutions, which had hitherto looked after the poor, the widows, orphans, the sick amongst their members, had essentially been broken 6 years previously by the Apprentices Act of 1814, which intentionally destroyed the power of the guild, paving the way for a flood of cheap unregulated labour and cheap unregulated produce, thus opening the doors to capitalism.
In response to the Apprentices Act, journeymen clubbed together to form unions to protect themselves from factory owners, and with the help of the Friendly Society cover, they started to work together to protect their rights, support each other, and battle for reform.
[1] Sarah E. Bond, Strike: Labour, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire. Yale University Press, 2025.