 By the 1840s the union had about 1,400 members, roughly 2% of the total number of bricklayers in the country at the time.In 1848, twelve former members of the Operative Bricklayers refounded the organisations as the London Order of Operative Bricklayers' Society.They led a strike in 1851 which won an early finish on Saturdays, and in 1854 succeeded in gaining a wage increase for bricklayers in the capital.