We have, moreover, received the most cordial assistance from all quarters. If we were to acknowledge by name all those to whom our thanks are due, we should set forth a list of nearly all the Trade Union officials in the kingdom. Individual acknowledgement is in their case the less necessary, in that many of them are our valued personal friends. Only second to this is our indebtedness to many of the great “captains of industry,” notably to Mr. Hugh Bell, of Middlesboro’, and Colonel Dyer, of Elswick, and the secretaries of employers’ associations, whose time has been freely placed at our disposal. To Professor H. S. Foxwell, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Professor E. S. Beesly, Mr. Robert Applegarth, and Mr. John Burns, M.P., we are especially indebted for the loan of many scarce pamphlets and working-class journals, whilst Mr. John Burnett and Mr. Henry Crompton have been good enough to go through one or more of our chapters in proof, and to improve them by numerous suggestions. And there are two dear comrades and friends to whose repeated revision of every line of our manuscript the volume owes whatever approach to literary merit it may possess. The bibliography has been prepared from our material by Mr. R. A. Peddie, to whom, as well as to Miss Apple-yard for the laborious task of verifying nearly all the quotations, our thanks are due. SIDNEY and BEATRICE WEBB. 41 Grosvenor Road, Westminster, _April 1894_. FOOTNOTES: [1] Now in the Goldsmiths’ Library at the University of London. [2] Place’s _Letter Books_, together with an unpublished autobiography, preserved by his family, are now in the custody of Mr. Graham Wallas, who is preparing a critical biography of this great reformer, which will throw much new light on all the social and political events of English history between 1798 and 1840 [published, 1st edition, 1898; 2nd edition, 1918]. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE Introduction to the Edition of 1920 v Preface to the Original Edition of 1894 vii I. The Origins of Trade Unionism 1 II. The Struggle for Existence [1799-1825] 64 III. The Revolutionary Period [1829-1842] 113 IV. The New Spirit and the New Model [1843-1860] 180 V. The Junta and their Allies 233 VI. Sectional Developments [1863-1885] 299 VII. The Old Unionism and the New [1875-1890] 358 VIII. The Trade Union World [1890-1894] 422 IX. Thirty Years’ Growth [1890-1920] 472 X. The Place of Trade Unionism in the State [1890-1920] 594 XI. Political Organisation [1900-1920] 677