Catalogue Number
NMLH.2014.20.32
Object Name
Badge
Place
Great Britain and Ireland
Description
The United Operative Plumbers Association of Great Britain and Ireland came into being as a result of a meeting between the Manchester Plumbers Society and the Liverpool Plumbers Society in 1865 with the purpose of forming a new national plumbers' union. Delegates from Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Bradford, Birminham, Chester, Dundee, Lancaster, Preston, Blackburn and Leicester, these thirteen 'Lodges' forming the nucleus of the union. In 1870 the Manchester Lodge withdrew its membership, followed by Glasgow in 1972, and the Dundee and Edinburgh Lodges in 1891. In 1911 the union name changed to the United Operative Plumbers and Domestic Engineers Association of Great Britain and Ireland, although in practice the union still only admitted plumbers. In 1919 it was recommended that the union change its name again to the Amalgamated Society of Plumbers, Domestic Engingeers and Kindred Trades of Great Britain and Ireland, but this suggestion failed to gain the
necessary 2/3 majority vote when put to the members. In 1922, when the union was struggling financially despite merging with the United Operative Plumbers Association of Scotland, the union finally opened membership to 'all those who earn their livelihood at the plumbing trade or any branch of it'. In 1931 the union became the Plumbers, Glaziers and Domestic Engineers Union. It changed its name again in 1946 to the Plumbing Trades Union. The union then merged with the Electrical Trades union in July 1968 under the new title of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union.
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