levo

Power and the People in Britain, c1170 to the Present Day

Workers’ movements and the growth of trade unionism

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 2 section A

Overview

The Combination Acts, Robert Owen's Grand National Consolidated Trades Union and its collapse, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the New Model Unions of skilled craftsmen, and new unionism among the unskilled, with the match workers' strike of 1888 and the London dock strike of 1889.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Why did the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union collapse within a year?

Numbers

What was the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union?

Key term

What were the Tolpuddle men actually convicted of?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What were the Combination Acts, and when were they repealed?

    Model answer

    Laws of 1799 and 1800 making it a crime for workers to join together over wages or hours; they were repealed in 1824 and 1825, though striking remained heavily restricted.

  2. 2

    What was the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union?

    Model answer

    A union formed in 1834, encouraged by the ideas of Robert Owen, which tried to bring workers of every trade into one organisation powerful enough to force employers to give way.

  3. 3

    Why did the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union collapse within a year?

    Model answer

    It was too loose and too poor to support strikes across many trades at once, employers made men sign a document renouncing membership, and the punishment of the Dorset labourers frightened members away.

  4. 4

    Who were the Tolpuddle Martyrs?

    Model answer

    Six farm labourers from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle, led by George Loveless, who in 1834 formed a friendly society to resist yet another cut in their wages.

  5. 5

    What were the Tolpuddle men actually convicted of?

    Model answer

    Not of forming a union, which was lawful, but of swearing secret oaths under an old act passed against mutiny in the navy, for which they were transported to Australia for seven years.

  6. 6

    How were the Tolpuddle men brought home?

    Model answer

    A petition of some eight hundred thousand signatures and a huge march through London kept up the pressure until the government pardoned them in 1836 and paid their passage back.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

America, 1840–1895: Expansion and Consolidation
America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality
Conflict and Tension Between East and West, 1945–1972
Conflict and Tension in Asia, 1950–1975

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

11 1918.
NovemberOctoberDecember

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

ABlight destroyed the potato crop the poor lived on.
BThe Great Famine drove around a million people to emigrate.
CBritain was the nearest and cheapest place to go.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

James Burbage opened The Theatre at Shoreditch in 1576.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Power and the People in Britain, c1170 to the Present Day, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.