The union was founded in 1860 and regarded itself as an amalgamation of three local societies.
It immediately attracted a high membership for a union of the time, having 4,802 members in 1866, and although this fell to 2,400 by the end of the decade, it rose to 5,199 in 1876, representing nearly 20% of the total workforce.
[2] In 1895, both the Liverpool Operative Plasters' Trade, Accident and Burial Society, and the Metropolitan Trades Society of Operative Plasterers merged in, taking membership to 11,000, and a three-month strike in 1898 produced a national agreement on wages and working conditions.
The Scottish National Operative Plasterers' Union finally amalgamated into the NAOP in 1967.
[2] The union sponsored its Bristol-area organiser as a Labour Party candidate in the 1929 UK general election:[3]