Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History

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The leather pouches, beautifully decorated and featuring a striking plate, are mostly known under their colonial British term ‘chuckmuck’, worn on a belt, and found across North Asia, China, and Japan from the 17th century onwards. Working-class history Book review: Striking a Light, the Bryant and May Matchwomen Louise Raw reveals the connection of these militant young East End strikers to new unionism, socialism and Irish republicanism.

Instead of Mrs Annie Besant leading the strike, Louse Raw argues that it was instigated by the matchgirls themselves. Photomechanical reproduction of 'Matchgirl Strikes' in front of Bryant and May's factory, showing strikers campaigning for better working conditions, c. Malthusianism is alive and well as feminists celebrate declining birth rate Since they cannot admit to a solution lying outside of capitalist production relations, ‘women’s rights’ advocates are reduced to prettifying their chains.

Casual dock workers often became gas workers in the winter when dock work was slack, and the gas companies needed extra labour, and so the matchgirls were the daughters, sisters and sweethearts not only of the dockers but also of the gas workers, who together made up the two largest New Union strike groups of 1889. Even ‘Ötzi’, the natural mummy of a man who lived 5300 years ago in the Ötztal Alps in Austria, was found with flint, iron pyrites, and a collection of different plants for tinder. It was a solid attempt to acknowledge the agency of the working class women themselves and how that has been distorted by time. It may be worth making plain that denying Mrs Annie Besant the deciding role conventional history has given her does not make the Bryant and May strike ‘spontaneous’. The two most common methods of fire-making before the advent of matches were friction and percussion.

This method utilizes a piece of high-carbon steel and flint (or other hard stone that experiences conchoidal fracturing to produce sharp edges, including quartz, quartzite, chert) plus a flammable substance that will ignite with a low-temperature spark and hold the ember well. In a careful reconstruction of events, Raw exposes inaccuracies in the standard accounts which, while petty, suggest a lazy acceptance of a chronology that fits the conventional story.

Kinship, marriage, neighbourhood and community: all bound the match women and the dockers together, providing support for Raw's allegation that the Bryant and May strike was a forerunner of, and indeed the inspiration for, the Great Dock Strike. No effort has been spared by those pests of the modern industrialized world to bring this quarrel to a head. strikers, mostly women and teenage girls, walked out of the factory, leading to the growth of a new trade unionism and shifts in the British Labour movement.

Raw's] claim for this as an important foundation of New Unionism is strong also, so this really is a must-read book if you're interested in British political history. Louise Raw gives us a challenging new interpretation of events proving that the women themselves, not celebrity socialists like Annie Besant, began it. Cases heard at the local magistrates courts, which Louise Raw does not use, suggest that the matchgirls policed the strike very vigorously, which in itself would make an interesting study. She has appeared on television and radio as well as delivering many talks in the local and Union communities. One of the traced named strike leaders, Mary Driscoll, was not only the daughter of an Irish dock worker, but she married a docker and is known to have supported Irish republicanism, making a particular hero of ‘Bold’ Robert Emmett.

Urine contains sodium nitrate, which is very similar to the potassium nitrate ("saltpeter") found in gunpowder. The book also gives a detailed description of the lives of working women in the East End in the 1880s and shows the supportive nature of the communities and the way that the matchworkers' strike was the inspiration for the subsequent strikes by the gas workers and dockers. Coated with sulfur and tipped with a mixture of antimony sulfide, chlorate of potash, and gum, it was ignited by being drawn over a strip of sandpaper. For a start, they're matchwomen - and I only knew the names and stories of the rich and powerful involved - this boo! Many early fire-makers learned to further improve the fire-drill by adding mechanical advantage to the technique.

The number affected was quite small, but the matchgirls' strike had an influence upon the minds of the workers which entitles it to be regarded as one of the most important events in the history of labour organisation in any country. Likewise, the help that the wages of female members of the family gave the all-male striking dockers and gas workers needs to be acknowledged. Early examples originated in China around 577 AD and consisted of small sticks of pinewood coated in sulphur.

The rock crystal is thought to have been imported into Scandinavia, possibly brought from the area around the Black Sea. So also did Hubert Llewellyn Smith, Sydney Oliver, Stewart Headlam, Hubert Bland, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. If you like what you're reading online, why not take advantage of our subscription and get unlimited access to all of Times Higher Education's content?