A thousand people in the Corn Exchange listened to speakers including J.R. Richardson, author of ‘The Rights of Women’ and Joseph Rayner Stephens, both of whom went on to be active Chartists.

[1] Following a trade union conference in Sheffield in July 1866 called to discuss the use of the lockout weapon by employers, two delegates from the Manchester Typographical Association, William Henry Wood and Samuel Caldwell Nicholson, convened the inaugural meeting of the Manchester and Salford Trades Union Council in October 1866.

Other members of the council included the radicals Peter Shorrocks of the Tailors, William MacDonald of the Operative Housepainters and Malcolm MacLeod, an engineer.

Many of the new affiliations were general unions of unskilled workers, a development which Kelley opposed as he felt the organisations would not endure, but they soon came to dominate the council.

[9] Two years later, Kelley broke his links with the Liberals, and in 1906 he was elected as a Labour Member of Parliament, standing down from his trades council posts.