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The National Association of Operative Plasterers (NAOP) was a trade union representing plasterers in the United Kingdom.

The union was founded in 1860 and regarded itself as an amalgamation of three local societies. It immediately attracted a high membership for a union of the time, having 4,802 members in 1866, and although this fell to 2,400 by the end of the decade, it rose to 5,199 in 1876, representing nearly 20% of the total workforce.Arthur Marsh and Victoria Ryan, Historical Directory of British Trade Unions, vol.3, pp.88-90

In 1895, both the Liverpool Operative Plasters' Trade, Accident and Burial Society, and the Metropolitan Trades Society of Operative Plasterers merged in, taking membership to 11,000, and a three-month strike in 1898 produced a national agreement on wages and working conditions.

The union joined the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives in 1918, under the name of the National Association of Plasterers, Granolithic and Cement Workers. It left the federation in 1924, but rejoined in 1933. The Scottish National Operative Plasterers' Union finally amalgamated into the NAOP in 1967.

In 1968, the union merged into the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Election results The union sponsored its Bristol-area organiser as a Labour Party candidate in the 1929 UK general election:

Constituency Candidate Votes Percentage Position Stroud 10,384 26.1 3

Leadership General Secretaries 1861: C. O. WilliamsTrade Union Ancestors, "Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons " 1885: John Knight 1885: Arthur Otley 1896: Michael Deller 1906: Thomas Otley 1922: Arthur Henry Telling 1950: Albert Dunne

Assistant General Secretaries 1896: J. Lamb 1897: Thomas Otley 1906: Charles Brooks 1909: Post vacant 1920: Arthur Henry Telling 1923: Henry Cockerill 1942: John Lane 1943: Post vacant 1946: Albert Dunne 1950: Ronald V. Gough

See also List of trade unions Transport and General Workers' Union TGWU amalgamations

References

Reports from commissioners, House of Commons, 1869, p. 12

Further reading James Robert Newman (1960), The NAOP heritage: a short historical review of the growth and development of the National Association of Operative Plasterers, 1860-1960.

External links Catalogue of the NAOP archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick