British trade unions were the first to protect the interests of working people because it was Britain that had pioneered industrial development. Most unions were based primarily on craft to begin with. They were an extension of the old guild system, and entrance into them required a long apprenticeship but conferred considerable benefits in terms of security and status. Many of them had complicated and often idealistic constitutions such as the Engineers Union with its democratic checks and balances based on the philosophy of Rousseau. In fact these early unions were designed as much to protect the workers in them against other workers as to take on the role of social organisations resisting unfair employers.

The large unions for manual workers came later as more and more working class people abandoned the land and fled to the factories. These unions were more embracing, less concerned about qualification and often survive today with essentially the same constitution and rule books of their original founders. The main role of these unions quickly became the alleviation of the lot of working people at a time when the worst type of industrial boss practised the survival of the fittest, while often the weak went to the wall.