Amalgamated Society of Steel and Iron Workers of Great Britain Amalgamated Society of Steel and Iron Workers of Great Britain The Amalgamated Society of Steel and Iron Workers of Great Britain was a trade union representing workers in iron- and steelworks, principally in Scotland. The union was founded in Glasgow in 1888 and was originally named the Associated Society of Millmen. John Hodge of the British Steel Smelters Association (BSSA) acted as the union's first secretary, but he stood down a year later, when members elected their own representative, John Cronin. The union grew rapidly, despite charging new members a one-off fee of 5 shillings, membership reaching 3,000 by 1892,
John Bull is a common sight in British editorial cartoons of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Singer David Bowie wore a coat in the style of Bull. Washington Irving described him in his chapter entitled "John Bull" from "The Sketch Book:" The cartoon image of stolid, stocky, conservative and well-meaning John Bull, dressed like an English country squire, sometimes explicitly contrasted with the conventionalised scrawny, French revolutionary "sans-culottes" Jacobin, was developed from about 1790 by British satirical artists James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank. (An earlier national personification was Sir Roger de Coverley, from a 1711 edition of "The Spectator.")