Matchgirls Strike and Annie Besant, Fairfield
Road, London E3
Photographs are courtesy of Mark Thomas and not to be
reproduced with permission.
https://markwrite.co.uk/2018/10/01/striking-a-light-the-bryant-and-may-matchwomen-by-louise-raw/
Matchwomen by Louise Raw
Friday, 8 August 2014
Book
review – STRIKING A LIGHT: the Bryant and May Matchwomen by Louise Raw
STRIKING A LIGHT: The Bryant and May
Matchwomen and their place in History
Louise Raw
Published by Bloomsbury
This book demonstrates that the 1888 strike by 1,400
matchwomen and girls at Bryant and May should rank with the similarly
successful strikes by Gasworkers’ and Dockers’ the following year in changing
forever the face of British trade unionism, which until then had tended to be
craft unions only. Now, unskilled and poorly paid workers had the confidence to
organise themselves and engage in collective action. Trade union membership
doubled to over 1.5 million by 1892 and rose to over two million in 1899.
The women, who were employed at a factory
on Fairfield Road in East London, were poorly paid. Average pay was around 8
shillings (40p) a week with some earning less than 5 shillings. This was for a
seven-day working week that started at 6.30am in the summer and 8am in the
winter and which ran till 6pm with half an hour off for breakfast and an hour
for lunch. Half a day’s pay was lost if they were late for work and there were
also a series of illegal fines and deductions for materials such as glue and
brushes. Many workers were confused about how their wages were calculated. They
were also badly bullied by domineering foremen some of whom were not averse to
handing out physical punishment.
Matches were essential in Victorian homes for lighting
candles or gaslights and where coal fires provided heat and hot water. Although
portable devices to produce a flame had existed for centuries it was the
discovery of phosphorus in 1669 that paved the way for mass production of
matches.
In 1831, the introduction of white phosphorus by
French chemist Charles Sauria made matches much easier to strike by increasing
their toxicity. Within a few short years it was well known that phosphorus
poisoning affected workers in match manufacturing.
Safer alternatives were to be ignored for decades with
Bryant and May, the largest match manufacturer in the UK, who persuaded the
government to veto the proposed banning of white phosphorus internationally.
Workers at Bryant and May were forced to take their meal breaks at their
workstations, thus increasing the risk of contracting ‘phossy jaw’ in which the
jawbone rotted producing evil-smelling pus that made it almost impossible for
anyone to remain in the sufferer’s presence. Death, often very painful, was not
uncommon. Bryant and May failed to report illnesses and fatalities and sacked
any worker exhibiting any symptoms.
Bryant and May became a limited company in 1884 and
they expanded overseas and bought out the smaller matchmaking companies in
Britain, with their dominant position allowing the company to force down wages
in the industry.
Workers at the factory took strike action to try and
raise wages and improve factory safety with walkouts in 1881, 1885 and 1886.
With no union organisation or funds these failed but demonstrated workers were
aware of the need to collectively fight for their rights. This was also
demonstrated by matchwomen throwing red paint over a statue of Liberal Prime
Minister William Gladstone that had been erected by Theodore Bryant who
illegally deducted a shilling from their wage packets to help pay for it.
Bryant and May’s shares had more than tripled in value
since they were issued in 1884, leaping from £5 to over £18. Twenty per cent
dividends were standard and amongst those to benefit were a number of prominent
clergymen and Liberal politicians.
On 15 June 1888, after Henry Champion had drawn
attention to low wages at the company, members of the Fabian Society resolved
not to use any matches made by Bryant and May and called on others to also
boycott the firm. Annie Besant was keen to investigate further and swiftly visited
Fairfield Road where she – and possibly other Fabians who accompanied her –
approached a small number of women as they left work to get accounts of their
working conditions. They confirmed what Champion had said and she wrote an
article for The Link that was published on 23 June.
By heading her work ‘White Slavery in London’ Besant
made the point that it would cost Bryant and May much more to look after a
slave than it paid in wages to its workers. The article did not however call
for strike action, which, in general, Besant disapproved of during her life.
For well over a hundred years, it has been assumed
that Besant was the leader of the strike – with few historians questioning
whether well over one thousand very poorly paid workers really would go without
pay under the leadership of a middle-class women they hardly knew – Louise Raw
very capably demonstrates this was not the case. The key to this was a
re-examination of Besant’s own writings and the newspapers of the day along
with Raw’s finding and interviewing grandchildren of some of the strike
leaders. Besant’s role in the strike was important but she was not its leader
and to suggest so has meant the inspiring story of the matchwomen’s courage has
remain hidden whilst the ability of working-class people to successfully
organise collectively in defence of their needs has been underplayed.
Besant’s article did though push the company on to the
defensive and after denying all the charges Bryant and May sought to discover
who had spoken with Besant. To ensure there were no such further attempts to
exercise free speech workers were asked to sign forms stating they would remain
silent about their working conditions.
Exactly how many refused to sign is not known but on 2
or 3 July at least one woman and possibly two more were dismissed. The company
denied this had anything to do with any failure by a worker to sign the
distributed forms and they cited a lack of trade and some disciplinary problems
for the sackings. None of the remaining female workers believed this and
suspecting foul play they downed tools and marched out of the
factory. The small number of male workers who mostly worked as
dippers joined them.
Ignoring company reinstatement offers the women
widened their demands to include other conditions, including the ending of
illegal deductions. The women immediately organised an effective, noisy picket
line and felt confident enough to send a deputation of six matchwomen to meet
company directors. When the discussions were not to their satisfaction, they
resumed their strike.
On 6 July around one hundred strikers marched to the
offices of Besant near Fleet Street and where three of them informed her of
developments and asked for her assistance. The following day, Besant wrote a
further article for the Link in which she expressed her dismay
at the action the women had taken but continued to call for a boycott of Bryant
and May’s products.
On 11 July, a friend of Besant’s, Charles Bradlaugh MP
raised questions in Parliament and a deputation of 56 women who marched there
to meet him brought parts of central London to a standstill as onlookers
starred at the appearance of so many poor people. Newspaper coverage of the
strike was intensified and for the first time it was reported that embarrassed
shareholders were pressuring management at Bryant and May to come to a
compromise with those refusing to work. The Star and Pall
Mall Gazette began collecting donations from its readers and on 14
July the first strike pay was distributed. It was also reported that the women
themselves had been collecting funds across East London.
On 16 July 1888 the company’s directors met with a
deputation of matchwomen and two days later the company ceded to all the
strikers’ demands. This included abolition of all fines, ending deductions for
paints and brushes, all grievances to be taken straight to the managing
director without the intervention of the foremen, the provision of a breakfast
room to allow for meals to be eaten away from work stations and the formation
of a union so that any future disputes could be officially laid before the
company. The Union of Women Matchworkers, which was then the largest union of
women and girls in the country, was formed, with Besant taking the role of
secretary for the next few years. One of her first engagements was to speak to
5,000 Tilbury Dockers who in October 1888 unsuccessfully took strike action
over a pay increase.
The Star newspaper
had no doubt about the importance of the outcome:
The victory of the girls……is complete. It was won
without preparation – without organization – without funds……a turning point in
the history of our industrial development……
Even in 1923 every person at the Fairfield Works was
believed to be a trade unionist.
The victory by the matchwomen would undoubtedly have
raised morale amongst working people in East London. The factory on Fairfield
Road was less than two miles from where the 1889 Dock Strike began. Strikers
and dockworkers lived cheek by jowl; many were related to each other, including
plenty with Irish backgrounds, whilst there are also strong indications that
amongst both sets of workers there were some with a strong interest in radical
politics.
During the 1889 Great Dock Strike its leaders such as
Tom Mann, Ben Tillett and John Burns regularly made reference to the matchwomen
as they recognised that what had been achieved demonstrated that the previously
unorganised could combine and win improvements in pay and working conditions.
The Dockers’ were to prove this was now a fact of life with a famous
victory that further threw open trade unionism to all workers whatever their
skills.
Louise Raw must be congratulated for her persistence
over many years to try and discover what really happened at Bryant and May in
1888 as she has produced a book of vital importance.
