The tradition inherited by artists who created the new Victorian trade union emblems is both long and venerable. As we have seen, the arrangement of a central motif flanked by associated symbols to form a trade emblem, seen so frequently in emblems from the beginning of the nineteenth century, can be traced back to Roman floor mosaics. This chapter considers the history of the emblem tradition itself, how it is reflected in the new emblems designed in the nineteenth century for the working classes, and what this reveals about working-class consciousness.

The Greek word for emblem implies any sort of inserted part, but the Latin emblema was a technical term for inlaid works of art, especially mosaics – such as the floor mosaics in the Forum of the Corporations, Ostia (Plate 1) – and ornamental reliefs. The Roman rhetoricians Lucilius, Quintilian and Cicero used the term emblema in an ironical way to characterize a speech, composed of interwoven points.

Emblems also have their origin in the Latin symbolum, Italian impresa (the ‘device’ – a chivalric symbol chosen to depict a personal preoccupation, aspiration or vow). They were not only displayed on shields, banners and surcoats, but also on jewellery, medals, buildings, furniture and books. The literature on devices dates from Florence in 1555 with Paolo Giovio's Dialogo dell'Imprese amorose e militare, but an impresa or device has only two parts, a title and an image, as opposed to the tripartite emblem, which comprises a motto, an illustration and an epigram containing a moral.