THE Society of Women Welders dissolved itself on August 8 1919, having campaigned for equal pay when women took over welding jobs from men who were away fighting WWI. On that date, it joined the long, fascinating list of trades unions that have been swallowed by history, by technological change, by the changing habits of consumers, or simply by mergers.

The naming of progressive organisations is much in the news at the moment; in Britain many attempts to establish a left-wing alternative to the Labour Party have fizzled out because nobody could agree on what to call it, or because all the obvious names had already been taken.

So this seems like a good moment to celebrate a few of our ancestors’ efforts, many of them dating from that extraordinary period in the 19th century when new unions and parties were being founded almost daily.

In 1892 the General Union of Clickers and Rough-stuff Cutters merged into the National Union of Boot and Shoe Rivetters and Finishers (not to be confused with its despised rival, the Amalgamated Association of Boot and Shoemakers), only to angrily de-merge from it in 1898.

So many specialised trades have come and gone over the generations, leaving as ghosts or fossils names which sound odd to modern ears.

The Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing Room Operatives and Ringspinners ended up as part of a general textile workers’ union called The Cardroom Amalgamation, which sounds more like a 1960s cool jazz combo.

We’ve lost the Altogether Builders Labourers And Construction Workers Society, the Amalgamated Union of Street Masons, Paviors, Stone Dressers and Rammermen, the Government Minor and Manipulative Grades’ Association (which later became the Civil Service Union), the Screw Nut Bolt and Rivet Trade Society, which survived until the 1970s, the Warrington Wire Drawers Society, and the Northwich Amalgamated Society of Salt Workers, Rock Salt Miners, Alkali Workers, Mechanics and General Labourers.

The French Cooks Syndicate is no more, nor are the Frost Cog and Screw Makers Society (frost cogs stopped horses slipping on icy roads), the Floorcloth Linoleum and Table Covering Union of Great Britain, the Certified Society of Medical Masseurs and Gymnasts, the Amalgamated Portmanteau Bag and Fancy Leather Workers Trade Society, the Amalgamated Carters, Lurrymen and Motormen’s Union, or the Waterproof Workers’ Union.

No worker today carries a membership card for the Association of Correctors of the Press, which organised proofreaders and was nicknamed The Comma Club. The same is true of the Amalgamated Association of Beamers Twisters and Drawers (by Hand and Machine), the Amalgamated Society of Journeymen Felt Hatters, and the Grand Lodge of Female Florists. The Philanthropic Hercules, in 1818, was one of the first attempts to create a union of unions.

The Rotundists were a group of radicals in the 1830s, and The London Corresponding Society of the Unrepresented Part of the People of Great Britain was a working-class political party of the 1790s. But the Society for Obtaining Parliamentary Relief and for the Encouragement of Mechanics in the Improvement of Mechanism was, despite its name, an early 19th century trade union.

History only dimly remembers The Committee of the Useful Classes, or the Society for National Regeneration — let alone The Hull Anti-Mill Society, which was actually a pioneering co-op. I once spent a Christmas in Norwich, but sadly not in the company of The Norwich Revolution Society.

Also lost in time are The Guild of the Brave Poor Things, the Union for the Promotion of Human Happiness, The People’s Drawing-Room, The National Anti-Sweating League, The Rational Dissenters, The Society of Honest Whigs, the Association of Working Men to Procure a Cheap and Honest Press, and the Association of All Classes of All Nations — which, in retrospect, perhaps stretched the principle of the “broad church” just a little beyond its twanging point.

We can, and must, always learn from our history — though whether any of the above is likely to be helpful in choosing a title for today’s new party is doubtful, I admit.

You can sign up for Mat Coward’s Rebel Britannia Substack at www.rebelbrit.substack.com for more strange strikes, peculiar protests, bizarre boycotts, unusual uprisings and different demos.