Associated Blacksmiths' Forge and Smithy Workers' Society (ABFSWS)

This collection includes: rules and related records, 1857-1957; monthly, quarterly and annual/financial reports, 1858-1961; membership registers, 1857-1924.

This society was established on on 24 August 1857 as the Scottish United Operative Blacksmiths' Protective and Friendly Society. According to the printed rules in this collection, the successive names of the society were: the Associated Blacksmiths of Scotland (1873), the Associated Blacksmiths' Society (1885), the Associated Blacksmiths' and Iron Workers' Society (1909), the Associated Blacksmiths' and Iron Workers' Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1915), the Associated Blacksmiths' Forge and Smithy Workers' Society (1924). In 1912 and 1914 it absorbed the Blacksmiths' Union and the National United Society of Smiths and Hammermen. With effect from 1 October 1962, it amalgamated with the United Society of Boilermakers, Shipbuilders and Structural Workers to form the United Society of Boilermakers, Blacksmiths, Shipbuilders and Structural Workers, which from 1 October 1963 became the Amalgmated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers when the Shipconstructors' and Shipwrights' Association joined the amalgamation.

Reference: rules in this collection (MSS.192/AB/1-2); reports of the United Society of Boilermakers, Blacksmiths, Shipbuilders and Structural Workers, 1962-1963 (MSS.192/BM/4/1/85a-86).

This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/

These records were deposited in 1978 by the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers through the official historian of the Associated Blacksmiths', Forge and Smithy Workers' Society.

Link to full catalogue: http://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/ABF

The Centre also holds records of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers and the Shipconstructors' and Shipwrights' Association.