Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers

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The Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers (ASLP) was a trade union for printers and their assistants in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It grew from an earlier system of local unions that formed the Central Association of Lithographic and Copper-Plate Printers’ Societies, set up before 1860 in cities such as Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. In 1879, Bradford and Manchester unions led the creation of a centralised union, named the Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers and Auxiliaries, based in Manchester. It began with about 500 members and expanded rapidly; the Manchester branch ran the union, with the entire leadership elected there until 1914. Membership reached about 3,500 by 1900 and 5,168 in 1915. In 1930 the Litho Music Printers merged into the ASLP.

In the 1950s and 1960s, lithographic printing boom helped membership rise to around 11,000, though there were concerns about losing control of the trade. To address this, the ASLP merged in 1969 with the National Graphical Association. The union’s headquarters were at 137 Dickenson Road, Rusholme, Manchester, and it served workers in the UK and Ireland. In 1968 its membership stood at 11,895. George Davy Kelley served as general secretary, and the union was affiliated with the TUC, ITUC and P&TF. It also sponsored Kelley as a Labour Party candidate in the 1906 general election.