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Governments, Labour, and the Law in Mid-Victorian BritainThe Trade Union Legislation of the 1870s$
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Governments, Labour, and the Law in Mid-Victorian Britain: The Trade Union Legislation of the 1870s

Mark Curthoys

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780199268894

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268894.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 07 March 2021

‘Under Sufferance’: Unions Outside the Law, 1825–1866

‘Under Sufferance’: Unions Outside the Law, 1825–1866

Chapter:
(p.45) 2 ‘Under Sufferance’: Unions Outside the Law, 1825–1866
Source:
Governments, Labour, and the Law in Mid-Victorian Britain
Author(s):

MARK CURTHOYS

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268894.003.0003

Legitimate combinations in Britain were conceived of in 1825 as occasional meetings of workmen to decide the level of wages for which they were willing to sell their labour. During the 1850s official opinion, based on a theory of an unregulated labour market, more readily acknowledged and accepted — though it regretted — the fact of strikes, than it did trade unionism. Whether the Liberal-Tory ministers intended it or not, trade unions after 1825 enjoyed in practice a form of legal toleration. This chapter considers the legal status of trade unions in Britain as institutions during the period 1825-1866, along with various interpretations of unionism and the position of trade unions with respect to legalisation.

Keywords:   Britain, trade unions, legitimate combinations, strikes, legalisation, unionism

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