Who were the Match Girls?
The Match Girls consisted of over 1400 women and teenage girls who worked in the match factories. They would spend around 14 hour days in the factories making matches. The tips of the matches were made from white phosphorous which was very toxic, the workers got a disease called phossy jaw. The toxic chemicals infected their jaw bones, which would reach the brain and kill the infected person unless the jaw bones were removed.
The Complaints, The Help and The Campaign.
The Match Girls campaigned against the use of white phosphorous in the matches, their low wages to be risen and to stop the unfair fines that were being deducted from their wages. A women named Annie Besant and her friend Herbert Burrows wrote an article in a newspaper about their situation and helped the girls to fight the match factory owners. Their campaign resulted in the Bryant & May Match Factory changing to using red phosphorous in the matches, which is less toxic, and their pay being risen and the factory stopped deducting the unfair fines. A new match factory was opened by the Salvation Army as a result of the campaign which hired many of the girls and they used red phosphorous in their matches and had better wages. The strike was significant as it gave women better rights and improved the factory conditions and the change to red phosphorous increased the Bryant and May factory's sales. The event might have contributed to the growth of the trade unions as many people saw this strike and believed that they should fight for their working rights and make sure something like that didn't happen to them, so the trade unions grew.