Personal Blogs

This year is the 125^th Anniversary of the legendary Matchwomen’s Strike in the East End of London, when 1400 women walked out of the Bryant and May match factory over pay, conditions and bullying by management. In Striking a Light – The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in Hstory, author Louise Raw argues that the Matchwomen organised their own strike instead of conforming to the traditional historical view that the strike was organised by Annie Bessant. Whoever was behind the strike itself, the Matchwomen organised themselves into a strike committee, and following a two week strike which saw them forming picket lines, and demonstrating through the East End and finally marching to Parliament, they won concessions. As a result, their Employees reformed the conditions they worked in. Their major campaigning issue was ‘phossie jaw’, a disease which was linked to phosphorous in matches. When women developed this disease they were immediately sacked, with no compensation or hope of re-employment. This disease made the victim smell so badly that their families and loved ones had to force them out of their homes. It was reported that on the outskirts of London there were areas where suffers lived side by side in slum dwellings.

The Matchwomen should be an inspiration to all those campaigning within the labour movement. Evidence shows that these girls worked hard and also played hard. Mostly from Irish immigrant descent, as were many in the East End of London during the 1880s, they were well known in the area. They were a close community, who wore colourful clothes, heeled boots and distinctive hats. The hats are especially interesting, as the Women could not afford their own hats but paid into a club which allowed them to share them round. It was reported that they also liked a good night out, gin and stout and a good sing-along to the songs of the day made famous in the Music Halls. It is most no surprise then to hear that during the days of the strike the Women made up rude songs about their employers which they sang as they paraded through the streets. These were strong and feisty women. It is no wonder that they came to win the battle with their employers.

The catalyst to the strike was a newspaper article by Annie Bessant who wrote of the poverty that the Matchwomen lived in and the conditions in which they were forced to work. By all accounts, it seems that following this newspaper article, Bryant and May tried to get their employees to counter this accusation about their conditions and to tell the press what great employers they were. The Women refused to do this, which resulted in the dismissal of a popular factory worker. This was the last straw, and the Matchwomen walked out. And so, a legend was born. 125 years later, the first Matchwomen’s Festival took place. The Festival held at the Bishopsgate Institute in the East End, included speakers, such as Louise Raw herself, Francis O’Grady (the current and first female General Secretary of the TUC), and Ted Lewis, an elderly gentleman whose Grandmother was a Matchwoman in the East End in the years after the strike. As a six year old going to work at the factory, she was able to enjoy the better conditions won for her by those who went on strike in 1880. The Matchwomen’s strike opened the way for a new era of activism from working people, and over the next fifty years many others seized the chance to campaign for better working conditions, such as the London Dockers in 1889, the Suffragettes, and the Miners and the era also included the nine day General Strike of 1926.