Thomas Dunning

Who was Thomas Dunning?

Thomas Joseph Dunning was an English trade unionist. He has been called "the authoritative voice of the Trades Union oligarchy".

He was born in London and became a bookbinder. In 1820 he joined the London Consolidated Society of Journeyman Bookbinders and elected to its committee in the late 1830s. In the strike of 1839 he favoured, in contrast to the majority view, that a deal should be struck with the employers. He resigned from the committee but was part of negotiations of the final settlement. He then reorganised the Society into the London Consolidated Lodge of Journeyman Bookbinders, which briefly joined a national union until London was forced to leave.

Dunning supported the independence of the South in the American Civil War, and compared Abraham Lincoln to Xerxes. He viewed laws such as the Master and Servant Act as putting industrial labour under "the old feudal notion of serfdom".