(8) Why Poverty Exists: With Help From The Match Girls
Reading The Soul of Man Under Socialism leads me to believe that Oscar Wilde thought poverty could be eliminated under socialism.
His concern was that if socialism is imposed and controlled by an authoritarian government, then our individualism and our freedom to be ourselves will be lost.
For Oscar, what is vitally important is to be able “to live without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever”.
Looking back to 1888, it is easy to see that in the East End of London, few, if any, could be said to be living without suffering restraint.
Four of the five women killed between August 31st and November 9th were homeless as they struggled to find casual employment.
The fifth victim was six weeks in arrears on the rent of a single room - no kitchen, no bathroom. Her income came from prostitution.
The socialism that made Oscar Wilde take pen to paper had been around for about 50 years and, in 1888, had its supporters.
The playwright George Bernard Shaw was a socialist who enjoyed irony. He wrote a letter to the press in which he said:
“Private enterprise has succeeded where Socialism failed. Whilst we conventional Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organisation, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism.”
Annie Bessant - Social Activist
Another socialist, Annie Bessant, involved herself with the women employed at the Bryant and May Match Factory.
Two Quakers, William Bryant and Francis May, started the Bryant and May company in 1843.
In 1888, working conditions in the Bryant and May factory in Bow were appalling.
Annie Bessant questioned some of the girls who worked at the factory.
On the 23rd of June 1888, she published what she had learned in her weekly paper, The Link.
The Link - June 23 1888
Under the heading “White Slavery in London” the article began:
“At a meeting of the Fabian Society held on June 15th, the following resolution was moved by H. H. Champion, seconded by Herbert Burrows, and carried nem. con. after a brief discussion:
"That this meeting, being aware that the shareholders of Bryant and May are receiving a dividend of over 20 per cent., and at the same time are paying their workers only 2¼d. per gross for making match-boxes, pledges itself not to use or purchase any matches made by this firm.”
“In consequence of some statements made in course of the discussion, I resolved to personally investigate their accuracy, and accordingly betook myself to Bromley to interview some of Bryant and May's employees, and thus obtain information at first hand. The following is the outcome of my enquiries.”
“Bryant and May, now a limited liability company, paid last year a dividend of 23 per cent. to its shareholders; two years ago it paid a dividend of 25 per cent., and the original £5 shares were then quoted for sale at £18 7s. 6d. The highest dividend paid has been 38 per cent.
Let us see how the money is made with which these monstrous dividends are paid.”
She described the factory as a “prison house” and the match girls as “white wage slaves” – “undersized”, “helpless” and “oppressed”.
These “white wage slaves” worked from 6.30 am until 6 pm, with just two breaks, standing all the time.
Annie Bessant went on to write:
“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”.
The working conditions included fines and occasional blows.
“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.”
“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.”
“One girl was fined 1s. for letting the web twist round a machine in the endeavour to save her fingers from being cut, and was sharply told to take care of the machine, "never mind your fingers".
“Another, who carried out the instructions and lost a finger thereby, was left unsupported while she was helpless.”
“The wage covers the duty of submitting to an occasional blow from a foreman; one, who appears to be a gentleman of variable temper, "clouts" them "when he is mad”.
All of this and the girls frequently suffered from the effects of the white phosphorus that was used in the manufacture of the matches.
On the website of the Royal College of Surgeons, Susan Isaacs wrote:
“Phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, commonly called ‘phossy jaw’, was a really horrible disease and overwhelmingly a disease of the poor. Workers in match factories developed unbearable abscesses in their mouths, leading to facial disfigurement and sometimes fatal brain damage. In addition, the gums developed an eerie greenish white ‘glow’ in the dark.”
Bryant & May were aware of phossy jaw, but workers who complained of toothache were told to have the teeth extracted or be sacked.
It’s worth remembering Oscar Wilde’s belief that “what is vitally important is to be able “to live without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever”.
Suffering restraint seems to mild a term to describe the tyranny these girls lived under.
Naturally Annie Bessant’s article didn’t go down well with the Bryant and May management and they tried to get the girls to sign a document disagreeing with what had been written.
The workers refused and when a worker was dismissed the strike began on July 2nd 1888.
Sarah Chapman: leader of the Match Girls Strike of 1888
Annie Bessant joined the workers led by Sarah Chapman who met with the management on July 16.
The fines were abolished, and it was agreed that the workers would no longer have to pay for the materials.
A separate room was to be provided where food would not be contaminated with the white phosphorous.
The strike ended.
Soon after, the Matchmakers Union was founded. It was the biggest union of women and girls in the country.
The strike by the match girls inspired other workers to organise and fight for better conditions.
That fighting has continued to the present day.
The fighting has not allowed us “to reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty would be impossible.”
I’m still hopeful of finding out why that is.
Some of the meetings that Annie Bessant helped organise during the summer of 1888 were held in Hanbury Hall. The hall is at 22 Hanbury Street, almost opposite 29 Hanbury Street.
At six in the morning of September 8th 1888, the body of Annie Chapman, a 47-year-old homeless woman, was discovered in the yard behind 29.
Annie was the second of the homeless women who have become known as “The Canonical Five”.