LANCASHIRE BOX, PACKING CASE AND GENERAL WOODWORKERS' SOCIETY

M308/1/1-3 MINUTES

M308/1/1 General Meetings and Executive Committee

M308/1/2 Joint Committee

M308/1/3 Secretary's Note Book(?)

M308/2/1-13 FINANCE

M308/2/1-3 Contributions Books

M308/2/4 Fines (microfilm)

M308/2/5 Record of Benefits (see also M308/3/5,6,8)

M308/2/6-7 Accounts

M308/2/8 Examining of Accounts (microfilm)

M308/2/9-11 Balance Sheets

M308/2/12 Subscriptions to Unofficial Strike Committee, 1918

M308/2/13 Miscellaneous Bill (microfilm)

M308/3/1-8 MEMBERSHIP

M308/3/1 Proposal Forms

M308/3/2 Membership Cards (microfilm)

M308/3/3 Monthly Returns of Boys and Lads

M308/3/4 Presidents' Books of Weekly Shop Totals

M308/3/5-6 Members on Sick Pay

M308/3/7 Members on Out of Work Pay

M308/3/8 Agreements to Stand Surety for Fellow Members (microfilm)

M308/4/1-12 CORRESPONDENCE

M308/4/1 Out-Letter Books

M308/4/2 Correspondence With Manchester and Salford Master Case Makers Assoc.

M308/4/3-8 Letters from Packing Case Firms about Apprentices

M308/4/9-10 Letters about Members

M308/4/11 Letters from Members

M308/4/12 Miscellaneous Correspondence (microfilm)

M308/5/1-4 PRINTED PAPERS

M308/5/1 Rules

M308/5/2 Circulars

M308/5/3 Appeal for Assistance in Dispute

M308/5/4 History

M308/6/1-4 JOHN BAILEY AND CO., MANCHESTER

M308/6/1 John Bailey, Treasurer of the Society (microfilm)

M308/6/2 Value of Accounts of Firms Trading with John Bailey and Co.

M308/6/3 Timber Day Book (microfilm)

M308/6/4 Shares (microfilm)

M308/7/1-15 MISCELLANEOUS

M308/7/1-2 Rules of Packing Case Makers' Unions

M308/7/3-13 Annual Reports

M308/7/14 Delegates at T.U.C., 1984

M308/7/15 Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, Officers, 1894

• <corpname>Lancashire Box, Packing Case and General Woodworkers' Society, 1945-</corpname>
• <corpname>Manchester and Salford Trunk and Packing Case Makers' Friendly, Relief and Burial Society, 1825-1878, Lancashire</corpname>
• <corpname>Manchester, Salford, Bolton and District Packing Case Makers' Society, 1878-1945, Lancashire</corpname>

Documents less than 30 years old may not be issued

The following papers were deposited on permanent loan by Mr. Alan Smith, Secretary, in July 1978

The Manchester and Salford Trunk and Packing Case Makers' Friendly, Relief, and Burial Society was established 9 June 1825, to provide unemployment pay, burial benefit and emigration grants. In 1854 sick benefit was added and in 1855 superannuation. In the eighteenfifties the Society formed its own Company, John Bailey & Co., named after its first foreman, in order to run a workshop at which unemployed members could work.

In 1892 it joined the Manchester and Salford Trades Council and in 1896, following a dispute with the employers, formed the United Kingdom Federation of Wood Packing Case Makers and joined the Kindred Trades Federation.

In 1903 it joined the Labour Party, previously having supported the Liberals.

In 1905 a No.2 Society was formed from workers in outside shops, but the two Societies amalgamated in 1910. In 1917 Boxmakers joined the Society, as a separate section, bringing women into the Society for the first time.

Originally members were employed in making packing cases for the export of cotton goods but the decline in the textile industry particularly after World War II led to the majority of the work being done for the engineering industry.

The 1878 rule book contains the first mention of Bolton members and the Society became known as the Manchester, Salford, Bolton and District Packing Case Makers' Society. In 1945, because of the increase in members from elsewhere, it changed its name to the Lancashire Box, Packing Case and General Woodworkers' Society.

For further details of its history see A Short History of the Lancashire Packing Case Makers, by Alan Fowler.(M308/5/4)

Certain of the records have been retained by the Society, but microfilm copies are available.