Catalogue Number
NMLH.1998.26.9
Object Name
Emblem
Title
OPERATIVE BRICKLAYERS' SOCIETY... IN HONOUR OF THOSE MEMBERS WHO NOBLY STOOD TOGETHER/ AND PAID ALL LEVIES IN RESISTING THE DOCUMENT 1859 AND HOUR PAYMENT 1861
Place
Guildford & Surrey; Rome; London & England & UK
People
Waudby, A.J.;; artisans; craftsmen; worker: bricklayers
Creator(s)
Waudby, A.J.; Jeens, C.H.
Description
The Towe of Babel cameo at centre. See too top right discetc.
The Operative Bricklayers Society was founded in 1849. It was never a national organization like the newer kind of trade unions which bore the word 'Amalagamated' in their names, like the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Millwrights, Smiths and Pattern Makers.
The emblem carries a reference to resisting the Document in 1859. This relates to a strike in the London building industry which arose from the bricklayers having to pledge, in an employer's document, that they would not join or belong to a trade union.
Like all trade union emblems, the cameos and panels proudly depict the products and sterling achievements of the skilled worker. Here we see the grand brick bridges and buildings of London and Renaissance Rome, and the imagined buildings and bricklayers of Biblical times.
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