The factory-owners of the time formed a “trade union” to resist the factory legislation, the so-called “National Association for the Amendment of the Factory Laws”, based in Manchester, which collected a sum of more than £50,000 in March 1855 from contributions on the basis of 2 shillings per horse-power, to meet the legal costs of members prosecuted by the factory inspectors and conduct their cases on behalf of the Association.… Go to Article