 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.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.