page_title: Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: The Commercial...
context_page_description: The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen is a British trade union representing train drivers. It is part of the International Transport Workers' Federation and the European Transport Workers' Federation. At the end of 2018 ASLEF had 22,424 members. Its current General Secretary is Mick Whelan.
context_section_description: In 1865, North Eastern Railway footplatemen founded a union called the Engine Drivers' and Firemen's Society. It unsuccessfully attempted strike action, as a result of which the NER was able to break up the Society.
  In 1872, an industrial union, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, was founded with the support of the Liberal MP Michael Bass. In 1872, the ASRS reported having 17,247 members, but by 1882, this had declined to only 6,321.
  By the end of the 1870s, many UK railway companies had increased the working week from 60 to 66 hours, a 12-hour working day was common and wages had been reduced. The Great Western Railway had not increased wages since 1867, had increased the working day from 10 to 12 hours in 1878 and then reduced wages for all but the most junior drivers and firemen in 1879. In 1879, almost 2,000 GWR locomotive drivers and firemen signed an ASRS petition to the GWR Board of Directors requesting a restoration of the 1867 conditions of service and rates of pay. The GWR reacted by refusing to meet the ASRS representatives and dismissing several of the petitioners from their jobs.
  As a result of this defeat, in 1879, drivers and firemen from Griffithstown, Pontypool, South Wales, started to organise to form a craft union separate from the ASRS. At the time there were similar moves in parts of England towards founding an enginemen's union. A large number of drivers and firemen met in Birmingham met on 9 December 1879 and resolved to form a National Society of Drivers and Firemen. There was a similar move by Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway drivers and firemen at Sheffield, whom the Pontypool group called  "the first founders of the Society". The Sheffield branch opened on 7 February 1880 with William Ullyott, one of its leaders, as the first member. Pontypool branch followed on 15 February, led by Charles H. Perry, one of the drivers who had unsuccessfully petitioned the GWR board the previous year. ASLEF officially records Perry as its founder. In the remainder of 1880 ASLEF opened branches at Tondu, Liverpool and Leeds (April), Neath (May), Bradford (June), and Carnforth (July).
  ASLEF adopted and published its first Rule Book in 1881. Its title page reproduced a stanza of Robert Burns' "Man was made to mourn: A Dirge":
  If I'm yon haughty lordling's slave
  
  By Nature's law designed,
  
  Why was an independent wish
  
  E'er planted in my mind?
  
  If not, why am I subject to
  
  His cruelty or scorn?
  
  Or why has man the will and pow'r
  
  To make his fellow mourn?
  For economy's sake, ASLEF initially chose to be managed by its Leeds branch, as a result of which its first head office was at the Commercial Inn, Sweet Street, Holbeck. It moved to 17 Mill Hill Chambers, Leeds, in 1885, and again to 8 Park Square, Leeds, in 1904. In 1921, it moved to London by buying a house at 9 Arkwright Road, Hampstead, from the family of the late Sir Joseph Beecham, Bt. For a period in the second half of the 20th century ASLEF also owned the next-door house at 7 Arkwright Road.
caption: Blue plaque on the Commercial Inn, Holbeck
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