In order to build solidarity for their cause, they founded the Sheffield Association of Organised Trades.
[1] In 1865, Dronfield presented a paper on trade unions at the conference of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, a bourgeois organisation which aimed to include industrial relations in its remit.
[1] Disappointment at the body's indifference to labour matters convinced him of the need for a national trade union organisation.
Dronfield attended this as a representative of the Sheffield Association of Organised Trades, and played a prominent role in the proceedings.
[3] Dronfield supported the Reform League, and in order to further labour interests, he convinced Anthony John Mundella to stand as the Liberal Party candidate for Sheffield in the 1868 general election.