However, by the following year, this had become part of the Board of Trades Delegates, a group focused on encouraging workers to vote for the Liberal Party, and even this had dissolved by 1871.
Initially, fifteen craft unions were affiliated, but their total membership was less than 3,000, and this figure changed little until 1890.
In 1885, it founded a local Labour League, to support trade unionists standing for public office.
During this period, it supported a wide variety of industrial action, and convinced the city council to pay its workers at union rates.
[1][4] The council co-ordinated local activity during the UK general strike, and although it had made no advance plans, its round-the-clock sessions and system of cycle messengers were deemed a success.