The National Federation of Station Masters and Agents Associations was formed on 11 September 1918 by the North Eastern Railway Station Masters & Agents Associations and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Station Masters’ & Agents Association. In the following two years, the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Stationmasters’ & Agents Association, the Great Northern Railway Stationmasters’, Agents’ & Supervisory Clerks’ Association, and the Midland Railway Stationmasters’ Association joined the Federation. By the mid-1920s the Federation was attempting to become a national union of station masters.