Issue 8
Match Girl’s Strike remembered
English Heritage has announced that it is to honour the 1888 Match Girl’s Strike with a commemorative blue plaque at the former Bryant and May factory in Bow, East London. Some 1,400 workers, almost all of them women and teenage girls, walked out in protest over poor wages and horrifying hazards that included necrosis of the jaw – “phossy jaw”. After three weeks on strike they won almost all of their demands, adding a new chapter to trade union history.