The “chapel” may possibly be nearly as old as the introduction of printing into this country.[42] We have no evidence as to the date at which the “chapels” of different printing offices entered into communication with each other in London, so as to form a Trade Union. But already in 1666 we have _The Case and Proposals of the Free Journeymen Printers in and about London_, in which they complain of the multiplication of apprentices and the prevalence of “turnovers”--grievances which vexed every compositors’ Trade Union throughout the nineteenth century.[43] Whether the “Free Journeymen Printers” managed to continue in existence as a Trade Union is uncertain. We have found no actual evidence of any other combination among compositors than the “chapel” earlier than the eighteenth century. One of the earliest proven cases of continuous association among journeymen is that of the hatters (or feltmakers), whose combination--now the Journeymen Hatters’ Trade Union of Great Britain and Ireland--may perhaps claim to trace its ancestry from 1667, the very year in which the Feltmakers’ Company, consisting of their employers, obtained a charter from Charles II. Within a few months the journeymen in the various London workshops--each of which had apparently a workshop organisation somewhat resembling the printers’ “chapel”--had combined to present a petition to the Court of Aldermen against the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company. The Court of Aldermen decided that, in order “that the journeymen may not by combination or otherwise excessively at their pleasure raise their wages,” a piecework list is to be annually settled and presented for enactment by the Court of Aldermen. The journeymen seem to have co-operated with the employers in presenting this list, and in preventing the employment of non-freemen. The rates fixed did not, however, always satisfy the journeymen, especially when the employers were successful in getting them lowered; and in 1696 we read of a deputation appearing before the Court to declare that they had resolved among themselves not to accept any less wages than they had formerly received, and to ask for a revision of the order. They had, according to the masters’ statement, not confined themselves to peaceful resolutions, but had made an example of a journeyman who had remained at work at the reduced rates. “They stirred up the apprentices to seize upon him as he was working, to tie him in a wheelbarrow, and in a tumultuous and riotous manner to drive him through all the considerable places in London and Southwark.” It was alleged that the men were organised in “clubs,” which “raised several sums of money for the abetting and supporting such of them who should desert their masters’ service.” In 1697 the employers introduced the “character note” or “leaving certificate,” the Company enacting that no master should employ a journeyman who did not bring with him a certificate from his previous employer.