The National Union of Teachers (NUT) is a trade union for school teachers in England and Wales. It is a member of the Trades Union Congress. The Union only recruits qualified teachers and those training to be qualified teachers into membership and currently has over 292,000 members, making it the largest teachers’ union in the United Kingdom and Europe.
The NUT was established at a meeting at King’s College London on 25 June 1870 as the National Union of Elementary Teachers (NUET) to represent all school teachers in England and Wales. After toying with the idea of changing the name to the National Union of English Teachers the name National Union of Teachers (NUT) was finally adopted at Annual Conference in April 1889.Teachers were forced to take a course in boxing to be able to fight back if they were attacked by angry parents.
In 1919, in response to an NUT referendum approving the principle of equal pay, a ginger group the National Association of Men Teachers (NAMT) was formed within the NUT to further the interests of male teacher. The NAMT changed its name in 1920 to the National Association of Schoolmasters (NAS) and seceded finally from the NUT in 1922. The secession came about indirectly following a decision at the NAS Conference that year to prohibit NAS members from continuing to also be members of the NUT after the 31 December 1922. The NAS is now part of the NASUWT, the second-largest teaching union in the UK.www.teachers.org.uk