Federated Trades Council
The repercussions of the Outrages left the Association moribund, but in October 1872 the trades council reconstituted itself as the Sheffield Federated Trades Council, with William Rolley as Chairman, James Pryor as Secretary and Edward Memmott as Treasurer. The following year, the organisation sent delegates to the national Trades Union Congress, and in 1874 it hosted the event at Sheffield's Temperance Hotel.
For the remainder of the century, the organisation focussed on promoting itself as an arbitrator in trade disputes and preventing wares being falsely stamped. While it had limited success in arbitration, Stuart Uttley's campaigns on stamping brought about the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887.
In 1885, the leaders of the Trades Council formed the Sheffield Labour Association to campaign for the election of workers to public bodies as members of the Liberal Party. Memmott, Uttley, Charles Hobson and William F. Wardley were all elected to Sheffield Town Council as Lib-Labs. However, Hobson was rejected as a Lib-Lab candidate for the Sheffield Attercliffe by-election, 1894. Although the Executive of the Trades Council drew up an electoral agreement with the Liberal selected, a delegate meeting instead voted to support the Independent Labour Party (ILP) candidate.
Membership of the Trades Council reached 16,000 by 1892, and by this point, a majority of its affiliated membership worked in the heavy trades. Hobson and Uttley were elected to the national Industrial Union of Employers and Employed in 1895, but this organisation soon dissolved.
The Trades Council affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee, but did not agree to the foundation of a local organisation until 1903. In 1904, this became the "Sheffield Trades Council and Labour Representation Committee", an auxiliary of the Trades Council, with the Building Trades Federation, the ILP and the Sheffield Socialist Society also represented. While this Committee dropped "Trades Council" from its name again the following year, its promotion of labour candidates independent from the Liberal Party increasingly brought it into conflict with the Federated Trades Council. The Committee became the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council in June 1908, severing all links with the Federated Trades Council.
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