Following a dispute in the carpet industry concerning 'the number of apprentices the masters shall allowed to be employ and the age at which apprentices shall be placed on the loom', the workers, led by Ben Adams, established an emigration society to aid 'those who are desirous of leaving the country'. He planned to raise money by organized effort among the workers so that for every apprentice put into the sheds, an expert weaver would be sent to America, supplied with the necessary funds to take the same amount was added, so that by April 1866, £300 or £400 was available. and as laid down:
'... the sum of Three Pounds shall be granted to any member who volunteers to go out in the United States of America or Canada, Five Pounds for New Zealand, Australia, or the Cape of Good Hope, the sum of Two Pounds for Scotland, and One Pound for the North of England '.
The Kidderminster Emigration Fund was not unique. Emigration was in the air, and several British trade unions established emigration funds about this time. What was exceptional in Kidderminster was the emergence of the trade union from the Emigration Fund. After a number of changes of a long title.
There had been an earlier exodus of weavers from Kidderminster. In the 1770s, at the time of the American War of Independence, trade was so bad that nearly the whole of the 87th Regiment, and part of the 88th, were raised in Kidderminster. Most found the new country preferable, and a few ever came back.