Dorset, who had formed a branch of the Grand National, were prosecuted under a law of 1797 for taking oaths of secrecy on their membership of the union. The savage sentence of seven years' transportation had a shattering effect of demoralisation throughout the trade union movement, and this, together with the employers' practice of compelling their workers to sign "the document", an undertaking not to belong to any trade union as a condition of employment, and the lack of funds, resulted in the disappearance of the Grand National before the end of the year. Another factor was divisions in the leadership of the union; one leader, J. E. Smith, got tired of Owen's Socialism, founded the Universalist religion, and went off to live a quiet and prosperous life as editor of the Family Herald.
The Labour Aristocracy councils, especially in Scotland. Glasgow had a General Union of Trade in 1833, and the Delegated Committee of Sympathy was founded in Aberdeen in 1846. By the 1860s the formation of local trades councils was everywhere well under way. Also around this time, the Trades Union Congress, summoned by the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, held its first conference, in 1868.
Illegality and How to Fight It The year 1867 is memorable in the history of the labour movement. In the first place, a Reform Act gave the vote to the workingmen in the towns (the country labourers had to wait until 1884, the women until 1918 and 1928). Secondly, in a court case known as Hornby v. Close, where the Boilermakers' Society took proceedings against the treasurer of its Bradford by walewful oaths, administered secretly by Persons danger they incur by entering into such Societies.
Declaration not authorized by Lawet done ne te be don have Induced, many Labourers in various Parishes in this County, to attend Me Ings, and to eater into Illegai Societies or Unions, to which they bind themselv concenied, who artful derelve the ignorant and unwary,—WE, the undersigned Justices think it our du to give this PUBLIC NOTICE and CAUTION, that all Persons may know ti ANY PERSON who aball become a Member of such a Nociety, or take aay Oath, or ament to any Tee Bet or Prade a ale led inite, be bestered, or consentin the administering or taking any Dal For who aball cause sech Oath to be administered, although aot actsally present at the timela, Person who shall not reveal or discover any Illegal Oath which may bave been administered, or aay I Asy Pron who slall induce, or endeavour to persuade any other Person to become a Meraber of wach Nociet WILL BECOMR AND BE LIABLE TO BE ANY PERSON who shall be compelled to take such an Oaths, unless le aball declare the same within
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WHEREAS it has been represented to us from several quarters, that mischievo and designing Person have been for some time past, endeavouring to induce,