ABSTRACT
Trade Unionism in the printing industry has a long history. ‘Every Printing House’, said a writer in 1683, ‘is, by the Custom of Time out of mind, called a Chappel, and all the Workmen that belong to it are Members of the Chappel; and the oldest Freeman is Father of the Chappel.’ The Chapel, now in existence in every printing office for each separate section in the industry, remains a vital institution, and plays an important part in fixing working rules and implementing agreements made between the Unions and the employers. The Chapel, in time, made Trade-Union organisation easier to achieve; even as early as 1666 we hear of a petition from the journeymen printers of London, complaining of the unemployment caused by the number of new apprentices taken on. The first associations, as usual in those days, were spasmodic and ephemeral, principally because the law seemed especially harsh against all combinations of work-people, At last, however, in 1835, when the whole movement was at a low ebb, the London compositors reorganised themselves, adopted a programme covering wages, hours, and limitation of the number of apprentices, and thus laid the foundations for the future development and success of printing Trade Unionism.
