The conclusions of the Birmingham delegates were not accepted without demur. Many of the branches in Lancashire and elsewhere objected to the position obtained by the London Committee, and stood aloof from the amalgamation. The Manchester Committee showed signs of jealousy at the transfer of the seat of government to the Metropolis. But the most important defection was that of the rank and file of the members of the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society, an association which stood in membership and funds second only to the Journeymen Steam-Engine Makers and Machine Makers’ Society. Newton and Allan had succeeded in persuading the whole of the Executive to throw in their lot with the amalgamation, but the bulk of the members revolted, and the society maintained a separate existence down to the end of 1919, when it joined the other societies in the creation of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Even in Newton’s own society, in which the main principles of the amalgamation had been carried by large majorities, a considerable number of the provincial branches remained hostile. On January 6, 1851, when the Provisional Committee formally assumed office as the Executive Committee of the “Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Smiths, Millwrights and Patternmakers,” scarcely 5000 members out of the 10,500 represented at the Birmingham Conference were paying to the amalgamated funds.[351] For some months, indeed, the success of Newton’s ambitious scheme looked doubtful. Though London had rallied to his help, only one small society standing aloof, the provincial branches came in very slowly. It took three months’ persuasion to raise the membership of the amalgamation up to the level of the parent society. Delegate meetings of the Steam-Engine Makers and the Smiths’ Societies decided against amalgamation, though many of their branches broke away and joined the new society. But towards the end of May the tide turned. The remaining branches of the Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Society held a delegate meeting, at which it was decided no longer to oppose the amalgamation; the Smiths’ Society of London and several other small societies came in; and by October Newton and Allan were at the head of a united society of 11,000 members paying 1s. per week each, the largest and most powerful Union that had ever existed in the engineering trades, and far exceeding in membership, and still more in annual income, any other trade society of the time.[352]