Web Page 3071 26th October 2023 First Picture: Traditional Match Box

Second Picture Match Factory

Third Picture: Swan Vestas

Fourth Picture: England’s Glory

Matches Bryant & May was a company created in the mid-19th century specifically to make matches. Their original Bryant & May Factory was located in Bow, London. They later opened other match factories in the United Kingdom and Australia, such as the Bryant & May Factory, Melbourne, and owned match factories in other parts of the world. The registered trade name Bryant & May still exists and it is owned by Swedish Match, as are many of the other registered trade names of the other, formerly independent, companies within the Bryant & May group. In 1861 Bryant relocated the business to a three-acre site, on Fairfield Road, Bow, East London. The building, an old candle factory, was demolished and a model factory was built in the mock-Venetian style popular at the time. The factory was heavily mechanised and included twenty-five steam engines to power the machinery. On nearby Bow Common, the company built a timber mill to make splints from imported Canadian pine. Bryant & May were aware of "phossy jaw". If a worker complained of having toothache, they were told to have the teeth removed immediately or be sacked. In the 1880s Bryant & May employed nearly 5,000 people, most of them female and Irish, or of Irish descent; by 1895 the figure was 2,000 of whom between 1,200 and 1,500 were women and girls. The workers were paid different rates for completing a ten-hour day, depending on the type of work undertaken.[ The frame-fillers were paid 1 shilling per 100 frames completed; the cutters received 23⁄4 d for three gross of boxes, and the packers got 1s 9d per 100 boxes wrapped up. Those under 14 years of-age received a weekly wage of 4s. Most workers were lucky if they took the full amounts home, as a series of fines were levied by the foremen, with the money deducted directly from wages. The fines included 3d for having an untidy workbench, talking or having dirty feet—many of the workers were bare-footed as shoes were too expensive; 5d was deducted for being late; and a shilling for having a burnt match on the workbench. The women and girls involved in boxing up the matches, they had to pay the boys who brought them the frames from the drying ovens, and had to supply their own glue and brushes. One girl who dropped a tray of matches was fined 6d The match boxes were made through domestic outwork under a sweating system. Such a system was preferred because the workers were not covered under the Factory Acts. Such workers received 21⁄4 to 21⁄2 d per gross of boxes. The workers had to provide glue and string from their own funds. In 1871 Robert Lowe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, attempted to introduce a tax of 1⁄2 d per hundred matches. Match-making companies complained about the new levy and arranged a mass-meeting at Victoria Park, London on Sunday 23 April; 3,000 match workers attended, the majority of whom were from Bryant & May. It was resolved to march on the following day to the Houses of Parliament to present a petition. Several thousand match-makers set off from Bow Road in an orderly fashion[. The demonstration comprised mostly girls between the ages of thirteen and twenty, and were working classes. On the same day as the meeting in Victoria Park, Queen Victoria wrote to the prime minister, William Gladstone, to protest about the tax: it is difficult not to feel considerable doubt as to the wisdom of the proposed tax on matches ... [which] will be felt by all classes to whom matches have become a necessity of life. ... this tax which is intended should press on all equally will in fact only be severely felt by the poor which would be very wrong and most impolitic at the present moment. The day following the march, Robert Lowe announced in the House of Commons that the proposed tax was being withdrawn. Bryant and May was involved in three of the most divisive industrial episodes of the 19th century, the sweating of domestic out-workers, the wage "fines" that led to the London matchgirls strike of 1888 and the scandal of "phossy jaw". The strike won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce working with the dangerous white phosphorus. The company rebuilt their Bow factory in 1909-1910, with many modern innovations including two tall towers housing water storage tanks for a sprinkler system. By 1911 it employed more than 2,000 female workers, the largest factory in London To protect its position Bryant & May merged with or took over its rivals. These were: Bell and Black, Swan Vestas]S. J. Moreland and Sons who sold matches under the trade name England's Glory. In the 1980s, factories in Gloucester and Glasgow closed leaving Liverpool as the last match factory in the UK. This continued until December 1994. The premises survive today as 'the Matchworks' (grade 2 listed building) and the Matchbox all using the existing buildings with renovations done by Urban Splash The British match brands continue to survive as brands of Swedish Match and are made outside the UK. Other parts of the merged company involved in shaving products survive, and still use the trade name Wilkinson Sword in Europe, and the Schick trade name elsewhere. However, the shaving products are made in Germany. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com