United Textile Factory Workers' Association

The United Textile Factory Workers' Association (UTFWA) was a trade union federation in Great Britain. It was active from 1889 until 1975.

Objectives

The federation was founded in 1889, to represent the various textile workers' unions in political matters. A successor to the Northern Counties Factory Acts Reform Association, it had a broader outlook, not just campaigning on the implementation and extension of the Factory Acts.

The UTFWA initially represented around 125,000 workers, three-quarters within twenty miles of Bolton in Lancashire. By the early twentieth century, its members were organised in the Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing Room Operatives, Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, Amalgamated Association of Beamers, Twisters and Drawers, Amalgamated Weavers' Association, General Union of Loom Overlookers and Operative Bleachers, Dyers and Finishers Association. Later members included the Amalgamated Textile Warehousemen, the General Warp Dressers' Association of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the Ball Warpers' Association.

The new federation had a General Council with about two hundred members of local unions, and a Legislative Council of full-time leaders. However, its member unions did not always engage with its structures, and the General Council did not meet between 1896 and 1899.

Early years

In its early years, the association attempted to introduce a bill reducing working hours, but dropped the proposal after it was only narrowly passed in a ballot of members. It also hoped to sponsor parliamentary candidates for both the Conservative Party and Liberal Party, but decided not to pursue this following a lack of interest from the Conservatives and opposition from James Mawdsley. However, it did achieve some success in campaigning against Indian tariffs on cotton imports, as the rates were reduced to below those on other materials.

In 1902, breaking with its previous policy, the UTFWA supported David Shackleton's candidature for the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in Clitheroe. He was elected and, the following year, the Association affiliated to the LRC. The Cardroom Workers quit the association a few years later after none of its members were adopted as parliamentary candidates, but rejoined in 1916.

In 1920, some of its member unions moved for the association to extend its remit to industrial matters, but this was not adopted.

Demise

The federation was dissolved on 1 December 1975, following the decline of the industry and the merger of its two largest affiliates into the Amalgamated Textile Workers' Union.

Election results

The federation sponsored a large number of Labour Party candidates, many of whom won election.

Leadership

Secretaries

1889: Thomas Birtwistle

c.1892: James Mawdsley

1902: Joseph Cross

1925: James Bell

1931: Cephas Speak

1943: Ernest Thornton

1953: Harold Bradley

1958: James Milhench

1968: Joseph Richardson

Presidents

1889: David Holmes

1890s: William Mullin

1913: William C. Robinson

1919: Walter Gee

1924: William Thomasson

1935: Archie Robertson

1953: William Roberts

1958: Harold Chorlton

1964: Jim Browning

See also

• History of trade unions in the United Kingdom

Further reading

• Griffiths, Trevor. The Lancashire Working Classes: C. 1880-1930 (Oxford University Press on Demand, 2001).
• Procter, Stephen, and J. S. Toms. "Industrial Relations and Technical Change: Profits, Wages and Costs in the Lancashire Cotton Industry, 1880-1914." Journal of Industrial History 3#1 (2000): 54-72.
• Singleton, J. Lancashire on the scrapheap: The cotton industry, 1945–70 (Oxford UP, 1991).
• Tippett, L.H.C. A portrait of the Lancashire cotton industry (Oxford UP, 1969).
• White, Joseph L. "Lancashire Cotton Textiles," in Chris Wrigley, A History of British industrial relations, 1875-1914 (Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1982) pp 209–229.