In
July 1910 Ben Tillett, and Tom
Mann, leaders of the Dockers'
Union,
called a meeting with other waterside unions to discuss the
possibility of forming a National
Transport Workers' Federation (NTWF). The representatives of the sixteen
unions present at the meeting agreed and Harry
Gosling of the Amalgamated Society of Waterman & Lighterman
was elected president of the new organisation.
Gosling continued to argue for further amalgamation and in June 1913
the General Labourers' Union joined the NTWF. The organisation was
considerably strengthened by the election of Ernest
Bevin to the executive. Gosling and Bevin worked closely together
in their efforts to make the NTWF a powerful union. In 1922 the two
men were instrumental in establishing the Transport & General
Workers Union (TGWU). The TGWU united nearly fifty organisations into
the world's largest union.
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