Historical Directory of Trade Unions. Vol. 6 Including Unions in Building and Construction, Agriculture, Fishing, Chemicals, Wood and Woodworking, Transport, Engineering and Metal Working, Government, Civil and Public Service, Energy and Extraction in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Shipbuilding

摘要

The Historical Directory of Trade Unions was fully reviewed in an earlier issue (RR 2008/65), when the fifth volume appeared, and the series is now completed with the sixth. It is a monument to the painstaking work of its compilers. At first they had supposed that about 6,000 unions would need to be covered, but the final figure is nearer 10,000, the records of which are in many cases sparse and difficult to trace. For this reason the publication of the directory has taken much longer than was hoped; during this period of nearly thirty years, several of the compilers have died, and the principal editor stoically relates in the Introduction that he has become almost blind.