Matchgirls Strike of 1888

Source Analysis: Matchgirls Strike of 1888
Background:
On an early July afternoon in 1888 a crowd of 200, mainly teenaged girls, arrived outside a newspaper office in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street in the City of London. They had left their work at the Bryant and May match factory at Bow in the East End in protest when three of their colleagues had been fired. Management had accused them of telling lies about their working conditions to a radical journalist, Annie Besant. They had come to her for help. In June Besant had heard at a meeting of socialists in Hampstead that Bryant and May, had announced monster profits with dividends of 22 per cent contrasted with paying wages of between 4 and 8 Shillings [20 - 40p] a week.
Annie Besant went down to the factory to investigate. She stood by the gate till the women came out, persuading a small group to talk to her. Besant returned from the East End with a terrible story of cynical exploitation and disregard for the health and welfare of children and young adults. She had recently founded a weekly agitational paper, The Link, in which she wrote up her story of life in the match factory. It was entitled "White Slavery in London".
From the crowd of 200 women at the door, Besant brought a small group into her office where they set up an organising committee. Besant had been pessimistic about the organisation of unskilled women factory workers and shortly before the strike had criticised the Women's Trade Union League in The Link for espousing unworkable ideas.
Bryant and May tried to break the strike by threatening to move the factory to Sweden or to import blacklegs from Glasgow. The managing director, Frederick Bryant, was already using his influence on the press. His first statement was widely carried. 'His (sic) employees were liars. Relations with them were very friendly until they had been duped by socialist outsiders. He paid wages above the level of his competitors. He did not use fines. Working conditions were excellent...He would sue Mrs Besant for libel'.
Source: It just went like tinder; the mass movement and New Unionism in Britain 1889: a socialist history (1999) by John Charlton

Primary Source Excerpts:
White slavery in London
From: Issue no. 21 (Saturday, 23 June, 1888)
The hour for commencing work [at the match factory] is 6:30 in summer and 8 in winter; work concludes at 6 p.m. Half-an-hour is allowed for breakfast and an hour for dinner. This long day of work is performed by young girls, who have to stand the whole of the time. A typical case is that of a girl of 16, a piece-worker; she earns 4s. a week, and lives with a sister, employed by the same firm, who "earns good money, as much as 8s. or 9s. per week". Out of the earnings 2s. is paid for the rent of one room; the child lives on only bread-and-butter and tea, alike for breakfast and dinner, but related with dancing eyes that once a month she went to a meal where "you get coffee, and bread and butter, and jam, and marmalade, and lots of it"; now and then she goes to the Paragon, someone "stands treat, you know", and that appeared to be the solitary bit of color in her life. The splendid salary of 4s. is subject to deductions in the shape of fines; if the feet are dirty, or the ground under the bench is left untidy, a fine of 3d. is inflicted; for putting "burnts" - matches that have caught fire during the work - on the bench 1s. has been forfeited, and one unhappy girl was once fined 2s. 6d for some unknown crime. If a girl leaves four or five matches on her bench when she goes for a fresh "frame" she is fined 3d., and in some departments a fine of 3d. is inflicted for talking. If a girl is late she is shut out for "half the day", that is for the morning six hours, and 5d. is deducted out of her day's 8d. One girl was fined 1s. for letting the web twist round a machine in the endeavor to save her fingers from being cut, and was sharply told to take care of the machine, "never mind your fingers"…
One department of the work consists in taking matches out of a frame and putting them into boxes; about three frames can be done in an hour, and ½d. is paid for each frame emptied; only one frame is given out at a time, and the girls have to run downstairs and upstairs each time to fetch the frame, thus much increasing their fatigue. One of the delights of the frame work is the accidental firing of the matches: when this happens the worker loses the work, and if the frame is injured she is fined or "sacked". 5s. a week had been earned at this by one girl I talked to. . .
A very bitter memory survives in the factory. Mr. Theodore Bryant, to show his admiration of Mr. Gladstone and the greatness of his own public spirit, bethought him to erect a statue to that eminent statesman. In order that his workgirls might have the privilege of contributing, he stopped 1s. each out of their wages, and further deprived them of half-a-day's work by closing the factory, "giving them a holiday". ("We don't want no holidays", said one of the girls pathetically, for - needless to say - the poorer employees of such a firm lose their wages when a holiday is "given".) So furious were the girls at this cruel plundering, that many went to the unveiling of the statue with stones and bricks in their pockets, and I was conscious of a wish that some of those bricks had made an impression on Mr. Bryant's - conscience. Later they surrounded the statue - "we paid for it" they cried savagely - shouting and yelling, and a gruesome story is told that some cut their arms and let their blood trickle on the marble paid for, in very truth, by their blood. There seems to be a curious feeling that the nominal wages are 1s. higher than the money paid, but that 1s. a week is still kept back to pay for the statue and for a fountain erected by the same Mr. Bryant. This, however, appears to me to be only of the nature of a pious opinion.
Such is a bald account of one form of white slavery as it exists in London. With chattel slaves Mr. Bryant could not have made his huge fortune, for he could not have fed, clothed, and housed them for 4s. a week each, and they would have had a definite money value which would have served as a protection. But who cares for the fate of these white wage slaves? Born in slums, driven to work while still children, undersized because underfed, oppressed because helpless, flung aside as soon as worked out, who cares if they die or go on the streets, provided only that the Bryant and May shareholders get their 23 per cent., and Mr. Theodore Bryant can erect statues and buy parks? Oh if we had but a people's Dante, to make a special circle in the Inferno for those who live on this misery, and suck wealth out of the starvation of helpless girls. . .
ANNIE BESANT.

A SWEATER'S MEETING.
From no. 1600 (Saturday, June 30, 1888), p. 3.
There was a crowded audience present at the Goulston-street Hall on Wednesday night, under the presidency of Mr. Herbert Burrows, and the Auspices of the London Tailors' Association, for the purpose of further expressing the evils of the sweating system. - The Chairman pointed to the evidence recently given before the Sweating Committee of the House of Lords, as a proof that no exaggeration had been used in the early days of the agitation against the system. But all the Royal Commissions in the world, he proceeded to add, could not cure the evils complained of; the only remedy possible - and that it was a socialistic one, he frankly confessed - was giving into the hands of the people the control of the means of production which was now in the hands of the classes. Sweating, after all was nothing more than the extraction of the due earnings of the labourer by the landlord and capitalist classes, and the only way to cure it, was, as he said, by the people themselves organising and combining; by establishing co-operative workshops, and thus getting the production into their own hands . . .
Bryant and May's Girls. - Are they Sweated?
From no. 1600 (Saturday, June 30, 1888), p. 3.
An interesting action is likely to occupy the attention of the Law Courts shortly. A week or so ago, under the heading of "White Slavery in London," Mrs. Annie Besant published in the Link a scathing article regarding the conditions under which, as she alleged, work was carried on by the girls employed in the large match factory of Messrs. Bryant and May, at Bow. The article proceeded to denounce the action of the partners of the firm in the matter, and challenged a denial. The article was brought under the notice of Mr. Theodore Bryant, who immediately telegraphed to Mrs. Besant, stating the article would receive legal attention. We understand that Mr. Bryant has been advised by his solicitors that the article affords good ground for an action for libel, and Mrs. Besant still standing by her statements, no alternative remains now but for the question to be fought out in the Law Courts.
BRYANT AND MAY'S EMPLOYES ON STRIKE.
They Parade the Streets.
From no. 1601 (Saturday, July 7th, 1888), p. 5.
Mrs. Besant continues in the Link the impeachment of the conditions of labour at Bryant and May's match factory, and states that the threatened "legal attention" has not yet made an appearance. On Thursday, it is asserted that she, with Mr. H. Burrows, was outside the works of Messrs. Bryant and May in Fairfield-road, urging the girls to go out on strike. On the same day a girl employed in the Victoria factory - in the box-filling department - wilfully disregarded the orders of her foreman, and was dismissed. That seemed to form the signal for the other girls, who, on the pretence of wanting more wages, marched out after sending in a deputation to the manager Mr. Dixon. The other departments followed suit, and even the wax hands were compelled to join in the strike. The eleven hundred employés paraded the streets in the neighbourhood of Bow on Thursday and Friday. A large number of police are stationed in the neighbourhood. Messrs. Bryant and May are firm in their intention to resent dictation as to the treatment of their employés.
THE MATCH GIRLS ON STRIKE.
Bryant and May Interviewed.
From no. 1602 (Saturday, July 14th, 1888), p. 5.
It was in the comfortable offices situated inside the big gates which shut off the large factory buildings from the Fairfield-road, Bow, that an interview was obtained on Saturday afternoon with the directors of Messrs. Bryant and May, Limited. Mr. F. Bryant said that the original firm had gradually built up and concentrated the works erected and the vast trade now carried on. They had put a large sum of money into their business, and as they employed a large number of hands they paid a large amount of wages every week. It had always been his desire to see his workpeople well paid, and if any girl, could earn the wages of three he was glad to see her do so. He had always endeavoured to be a conscientious employer of labour, and he had tried to give his workpeople as fair remuneration as profits would permit. In doing that he considered that in finding work for as many people as he could he was only doing his duty to society, and he thought he was quite as much a philanthropist, and perhaps more so, than some of those people who write or talk of the rights of the working classes, but do nothing for them. He denied altogether the statement of the Socialist leaders, who, he said, he felt convinced were trying to make mischief and prejudice the girls for personal motives and interests of their own. The girls, he said, earned on an average from 5s. a week learners, to 18s. a week competent hands, and in one instance a family of three earned £2 a week between them. He then explained in full the incident which led up to all the girls going out on strike. . . He felt sorry for many of the girls, for they desired to return to their work, and as they had nothing to fall back upon, the strike enforced upon them by others would result, perhaps, seriously, and cause them great hardships. The girls had all been paid that afternoon, and with only their three days' pay to receive they had already begun to complain. During the afternoon, one hundred and sixty girls had signed a paper expressing their wish to be allowed to return to work provided they were protected from ill-treatment by the others who were following the ill-advice given them. Two girls who had wished to remain at work had already been severely beaten by some of the others, and they had come that morning with black eyes. In consequence of this, and in consequence of certain information which had reached them as to the future action of the Socialists and what was intended, he had already applied to the Home Secretary for special protection for the girls.
The Strike Ended.
On Tuesday the deputation from the London Trades Council, accompanied by the Girls' Strike Committee, had another interview with the directors of the firm of Messrs. Bryant and May. After a prolonged discussion, the following terms were agreed upon by the firm, the Trades' Unionists, and the girls for submission to a meeting of the strikers, who were awaiting the result in Mr. Charrington's Hall:—(1) Abolition of all fines; (2) abolition of all deductions for paint, brushes, stamps, &c.; (3) restitution of "pennies" if the girls do their own racking, or payments by piecework of boys employed to do it—(the result of this latter will be more than equal to the penny); (4) the packers to have their threepence; (5) all grievances to be taken straight to the managing directors without the intervention of the foremen. The firm further said that they would, as soon as possible, provide a breakfast-room for the girls so that the latter will not be obliged to get their meals in the room where they work, and they also expressed a strong wish that the girls would organize themselves into an union so that future disputes, if any, may be officially laid before the firm. . . All the girls and boys were to be taken back, no distinction being made as to ringleaders.
Source: http://mernick.co.uk/thhol/matchgirls.html

QUESTIONS :

1. What are the main points of conflict between the workers & the factory owners?
2. What role did daily newspapers and growing literacy play in such events?
3. How does this event CONTRAST with the situation in Russia in the 1880s?