 Owen’s “plan” was itself derivative of (and ultimately popularized by) a number of Irish and English trade unionists such as William Thompson and Thomas Hodgskin, co-founder of the London Mechanics Institute.When this poverty led to revolt, as it did in Glasgow in April 1820, a “committee of gentlemen” from the area commissioned the cotton manufacturer and philanthropist, Robert Owen, to produce a “Report to the County of Lanark” in May 1820, which recommended a new form of pauper relief; the cooperative village.Owen's villages thus needed to be compared with the Dickensian "Houses of Industry" that were created after the passage of the 1834 Poor Law amendment act.