64 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH RURAL HISTORY 



diate progress in the Eastern counties, attaining by 1910, 

 a membership of 4,000. Organizers were sent out to other 

 counties ; and, in 1912, the Union became known as " The 

 National Agricultural Labourers' and Rural Workers' 

 Union." Membership was not confined to farm labourers. 

 Rural workers of all kinds, including women, were eligible 

 for inclusion in its ranks. An important step taken by the 

 Union was its affiliation to the Trade Union Congress, thereby 

 entitling it to send representatives to the annual congress. 



The passing of the National Insurance Act in 1911 led 

 to a sudden expansion of Trade Union membership. By 

 the terms of the Act, every wage-earner was required to 

 join an " Approved Society." During 1913, the Agricul- 

 tural Labourers' and Rural Workers' Union gained about 

 8,000 new members ; and, in the same year, the Trade 

 Union Congress voted 500 to the Union for organizing 

 purposes. A year later, the Union had 360 branches in 

 England and Wales, with a total membership of 15,000. 



But the work of organizing rural workers was not con- 

 fined to the National Agricultural Labourers' and Rural 

 Workers' Union. In 1898 there had come into existence 

 the " Workers' Union," established for the purpose of 

 organizing unskilled and semi-skilled workers of all descrip- 

 tions not already catered for by the craft Unions. 



The Workers' Union met with some success in the 

 organizing of farm workers in 1889-90 ; but its efforts 

 relaxed with the decline in Trade Unionism during the 

 last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1910, however, 

 the Union renewed its efforts in the rural areas. Its 

 membership in 1910 was only 5,000, divided among its 

 111 branches. Between 1911 and 1913 its membership 

 increased to 91,000 and the number of its branches to 567. 

 " By the end of 1919," writes Mr. Webb, " its membership 

 had risen to about 500,000 in nearly 2,000 branches, com- 

 prising almost every kind and grade of worker, of any age 

 and either sex, from clay- workers and tin miners to corpora- 

 tion employes and sanitary inspectors, from domestic 

 servants and waiters to farm labourers and carmen." 



Other Unions of general workers shared in the respon- 

 sibility of organizing rural labourers. By means of the 

 combination of unskilled workers in towns with farm 

 labourers, " the use of farm workers during industrial 

 disputes and the use of unskilled labour in agricultural 

 disputes " was checked. 



