The Atlas seeks to be wider in scope than standard trade union and labour histories, examining the character of protest, both its changing nature and its continuities, and setting the whole armoury of aggressive and defensive tactics available to workers in a wider context of community struggles and developing trade unionism. The role of employers and their associations and the changing stance of the state to the legitimacy of trade unions will also be considered. We aim to set these aspects in a geographical context so that new questions will be asked and novel insights gained - values that were consistently highlighted in the reviews of the companion volume 'An Atlas of Rural Protest in Britain 1548-1900'.