Manchester Trades Union Council

Manchester TUC
Manchester Trades Union Council
Founded	1868 at Mechanics' Institute, Manchester
Headquarters	Mechanics' Institute, Manchester
Location	England;
Members	18,000 (2016)
Key people	President - Alexander Davidson (PCS) ; Secretary - Chris Marks (PCS) ; Vice President - John Clegg (Unite)
Affiliations	Greater Manchester County Association of Trades Councils

The Manchester Trades Union Council brings together trade union branches in Manchester in England.

History

Efforts to bring trade unionists together across Manchester go back to the eighteenth century. In 1818 the cotton spinners persuaded other trades to join them in a successful but short lived Philanthropic Society. The first use of the name Trades Council was a meeting in 1837 of the United Trades Council of Manchester and Salford organising support for the Glasgow Cotton Spinners. A thousand people in the Corn Exchange listened to speakers including J.R. Richardson, author of ‘The Rights of Women’ and Joseph Rayner Stephens, both of whom went on to be active Chartists.^[1]

Following a trade union conference in Sheffield in July 1866 called to discuss the use of the lockout weapon by employers, two delegates from the Manchester Typographical Association, William Henry Wood and Samuel Caldwell Nicholson, convened the inaugural meeting of the Manchester and Salford Trades Union Council in October 1866. A month later Wood was elected secretary and Nicholson president.^[2] Wood and Nicholson were Conservative working men. Other members of the council included the radicals Peter Shorrocks of the Tailors, William MacDonald of the Operative Housepainters and Malcolm MacLeod, an engineer. When the Council decided to avoid identifying with any political movement, the radicals set up the Trade Unionists Political Association with MacDonald as president and MacLeod as secretary.^[3] One of the Trades Council's first decisions was the proposal to form a court of arbitration. Set up jointly with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce in 1868, it was short-lived, failing to arbitrate a single case.^[4] More significantly in February that year, the council called a national conference of trade unionists which met in June and agreed to form what became the Trades Union Congress. Woods was elected president and Shorrocks secretary.^[5] This soon became the leading national association of trade unions.

Peter Shorrocks played a leading role in establishing the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and was an active supporter of the International Workingmen's Association, the First International.^[6] He succeeded Wood to be secretary from 1877 to 1883. He was followed as secretary by George Davy Kelley, full-time secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers and a member of the General Council of the Manchester Liberal Association.^[7] Kelley helped to greatly increase affiliations to the council. Many of the new affiliations were general unions of unskilled workers, a development which Kelley opposed as he felt the organisations would not endure, but they soon came to dominate the council. Despite this, Kelley remained the council's most prominent figure, being elected to Manchester City Council in 1891 as a Liberal-Labour representative.^[8]

In 1902, the council convened a meeting of local trade unionists and members of the Independent Labour Party and Social Democratic Federation, which renamed the council as the Manchester Trades and Labour Council, becoming the local affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee.^[9] Two years later, Kelley broke his links with the Liberals, and in 1906 he was elected as a Labour Member of Parliament, standing down from his trades council posts.^[8]

In the 1920s, the council affiliated to the Communist Party of Great Britain-led National Minority Movement.^[10] Although the Labour Party set up its own Manchester Borough organisation, the council continued to campaign on a wide range of labour issues, remaining the leading labour movement organisation in the city into the 1930s, and attracted the support of John Maynard Keynes for its proposals on local industrial policy.^[11]

In 1974, Salford District Trades Council was created, and the Manchester Trades Union Council adopted its present name.^[12]

Secretaries

1866: William Henry Wood^[12]

1877: Peter Shorrocks^[12]

1883: George Davy Kelley^[12]

1906: Tom Fox^[12]

1909: William R. Mellor^[12]

1929: A. A. Purcell^[12]

1935: Jack Munro^[12]

1944: Horace Newbold^[12]

1969: Colin Davis^[12]

1974: Frances Dean

1982: Dave Hawkins - UHDE

1990: Arthur Berry - NGA

1999 Jeno Menezes

2004 Geoff Brown - UCU

2012 Frank Ellis - TSSA

2013 Richard Lighten - UNISON

2014 Alexander Davidson - PCS

2016: Chris Marks - PCS

2018: Alexander Davidson - GMB

2019: John Pye - UNISON

2020: John Pye - UNISON

Presidents

1866: Samuel Caldwell Nicholson

1882: Robert Austin

1886: Matthew Arrandale - UMW

1895: F. Entwistle - ASE

1899: George Tabbron - Manchester Brassfounders

1901: Matthew Arrandale - UMW

1905: A. A. Purcell - NAFTA

1906:

Tom Fox

1914: A. A. Purcell - NAFTA

1920: Rhys Davies - SAU

1921: Ernest Hookway

1924: Jack Munro (NUSMW)

1925: Ernest Hookway

1927: Will Crick

1927: Eric Gower

1932: Abraham Moss - RCA

1935: Fred Harrison - NSMM

1938: Bob Bradfield

1940: Tom Brown - NAUSAWC

1944: Jim Porter - USDAW

1946: Jim Cunnick - USDAW

1950: Edmund Dell - ASSET

1951: Jim Porter - USDAW

1953: L. H. Addie - CSCA

1954: Jim Cunnick

1957: Jim Porter - USDAW

1959: Edmund Dell - ASSET

1961: Eddie Marsden - CEU

1964: Ernest Pearson - AEU

1967: Eddie Marsden - CEU

1969: C. Davies

1970: Frances Dean - USDAW

1975: Mick Gadian - NUTGW

1978: M. Bury

1980: T. Keane

1982: Denis Maher - CEU

1988: Tony Lucas - MU

1989: Henry Suss - GMB Clothing and Textile Section

1991: Harry Spooner - NASUWT

2004: Sharon Green - PCS

2013: Annette Wright - PCS

2017: Alexander Davidson - PCS

2018: Annette Wright - PCS

2019: Ian Allinson - UNITE

2020: Ian Allinson - UNITE

Vice Presidents

1945/46/47: Frances Dean

1948/49: E Pearson

1950:P Jackson

1951: J Porter

1952:P Jackson

1955/56: J Porter

1957/58: E Dell

1959/60: E Marsden

1961/62/63: E Pearson

1964/65/66: E Marsden

1967/68: C Davies

1969/70: A Harvey

1973/74:S Gadian

1977/78/79: F Hodgkinson

1980/81:D Maher

1982/83/84: JP Gunn

1985-89: Henry Suss

1989-91: G Peel

2004: Sarah Livesey - USDAW

2013: John Clegg - UNITE

2019: John Morgan - NEU

2020: John Morgan - NEU

References

^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 7. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 13. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 15. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 20. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 21. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 22. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 26. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.
^ ^a ^b Alan Haworth and Dianne Hayter, Men who made Labour, pp.122-123
^ Declan McHugh, Labour in the City, p.53
^ Alan Clinton, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900-40, p.148
^ Alan Clinton, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900-40, pp.179-180
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Salford Trades Union Council, "Officers"

'and the new paths are begun' Manchester Trades Council History Vol 2 Jim Arnison and Edmund and Ruth Frow ISBN 1 870605 85 3

External links

Official site

[1] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 7. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[2] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 13. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[3] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 15. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[4] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 20. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[5] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 21. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[6] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 22. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[7] Edmund; Frow, Ruth (1976). To make that future-- now! : a history of The Manchester and Salford Trades Council (Subscription ed.). Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 26. ISBN 0-85972-026-8.

[haworth-8] Alan Haworth and Dianne Hayter, Men who made Labour, pp.122-123

[9] Declan McHugh, Labour in the City, p.53

[10] Alan Clinton, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900-40, p.148

[11] Alan Clinton, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900-40, pp.179-180

[salford-12] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Salford Trades Union Council, "Officers"

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