It is the purpose of this work to discuss the rise and fall of trade unionism among agricultural labourers in the four Midland counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, at the end of the nineteenth century, and to trace the influence it had upon the daily life of the workers - as well as to give some idea of what that daily life involved. Rather surprisingly, perhaps, although the four counties form something of a geographical entity, the union experience of each was different from its fellows. In the course of the thesis an attempt has been made to show how this diversification worked out in practice, and to suggest some reasons for its existence.