Annie Besant and the Matchgirls

One hot June day in 1888 the journalists at 'The Link' newspaper were surprised to find dozens of young girls crowding into their offices, however surprise turned to shock as the reason for their visit began to unfold. The young women were workers at Bryant and May's match factory who had walked out of employment on behalf of their friends who had been fired for petty reasons. In those days before the Welfare system their actions were unprecedented and admirable.
The journalist who was determined to bring their story to the whole country was Annie Besant.

The Bryant and May factory stood in Fairfield Road which ran off of Bow Road. Its working conditions were horrendous as the matches had to be dipped in yellow phosphorous, a dangerous substances which led to what was known as 'phossy jaw' a form of cancer of the face.

In Annie Besant the matchgirls found a willing champion for their cause. In the following copy of 'The Link' her article was headed 'White Slavery in London' and went on to describe how the match girls, some as young as thirteen worked from 6am to 6pm with just two short breaks.

From their meagre wages her readers were told the women had to house, feed and clothe themselves, the wages were further decreased if they left a match on the bench and by the cost of paint, brushes and other equipment they needed to do their work. Then apart from the likelihood of developing 'phossy jaw' there were there dangers of losing a finger or even a hand in unguarded machinery.

The answer from the employers was to try and bully the woman back to work, but this failed when another worker was dismissed for no good reason and the whole workforce of 1.400 women walked out and and went on to set up their strike committee rooms in Bow Road.  While the women were on strike they were paid from the strike fund.

Eventually their employers conceded that working conditions would be improved and the fines abolished, with this and an improvement in pay the women went back to work and gradually yellow phosphorous was phased out in the production of matches.

This was quite a difference considering only six years before Mr Bryant, wishing to curry favour with the then present Prime Minister Mr Gladstone, arranged to have a statue erected of him in front of St Mary's church. Nothing wrong with this you might think until you learn that to pay for it he deducted a certain amount each week from his workers wages. When it was unveiled the matchgirls demonstrated by throwing stones, but this had little effect of the messers Bryant and May that was to come six years later when the women down tools and walked out.

There had been strikes at the factory before with little change in conditions, but it was to be these young women that caught the public imagination, maybe the reason was because they weren't afraid to state their case and were prepared to march and hold meetings and of course they faced the employers and won.

Ben Tillett, a union leader of the time,  paid tribute to the Match Workers whose strike he called 'the beginning of the social convulsion which produced the New Unionism'.

The  year following the matchgirls strike the gas workers and general labourers formed a union which secured an eight hour working day, and in the same year 60.000 dock workers called a strike which virtually close one stretch of the Thames for over a month. Through the matchgirls it seemed the working class had realised its power.

For anyone tracing their ancestry might like to see if one of the strikers were among their ancestors, if so you can check through the Strike Fund Register:

http://www.unionhistory.info/matchworkers/browse.php?Page=1&Book=Match+Workers+Strike+Fund+Register

Social and political reform seems not to have satisfied Annie Besant's hunger for some all-embracing truth to replace the religion of her youth. She became interested in Theosophy, a religious movement founded in 1875 and based on Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. As a member and later leader of the Theosophical Society, she helped to spread Theosophical beliefs around the world, notably in India.

Annie Besant first visited India in 1893 and later settled there, becoming involved in the Indian nationalist movement. In 1916 she established the Indian Home Rule League, of which she became president. She was also a leading member of the Indian National Congress.
Mahatma Gandhi said that Annie Besant awoke India from the deep sleep.

She died in India on 20 September 1933

Hannah Billig (The Angel of Cable Street)

Towards the end of the 19th century Russia began a series of anti-Semitic attacks known as pogroms, pogrom is a Russian word meaning devastation, and for the Jewish families who had lived there for generations it was devastation indeed. So given the choice between fleeing thecountry or death the exodus began.

Jews had always been discriminated against, there is a belief that each generation will have a new enemy, but what made the situation in Russia different was that it wasn' just a series of random attacks, this was officially sanctioned just as would occur on a more horrific scale in the middle of the next century.

One Jewish family, among the thousands, who escaped were the Billigs. They settled in Hanbury Street which was close to the Jewish community in Brick Lane it was here their daughter Hannah was born in 1901.

Barnet Billig worked as a newsagent and cigarette/cigar maker while his wife Millie took care of their six children, having settled in England the Billigs were determined the children would succeed at their studies and turned one of their rooms into a library where they would all study after school, and it says something for that determination that of their six children four of them qualified to become doctors, among them Hannah which was almost unheard of in the 1920's when women weren't expected to have a career.

Hannah had attended Myrtle Street School where she won a scholarship which gave her a place at the University of London to read Medicine, she trained at the Royal Free and London Hospitals before qualifying in 1925 after qualification she worked at the Jewish Maternity Hospital in Underwood Street for two years before opening her own practice in Watney Street.

The N.H.S was still over a decade away by the time Hannah moved her practice to Cable Street in 1935 so at this time if you needed to see a doctor you would have to pay, but payment or not Hannah was never known to turn a patient away and earned the title of ˜The Angel of Cable Street'' today a blue plaque marks the spot.

She reminds me of a doctor we had in Poplar, who at a time when most other doctors charged half a crown per visit Dr Goldie charged sixpence, and only then if the person could afford it. She was remembered with affection as 'The Sixpenny Doctor'

A year after Hannah moved to Cable Street she would probably have witnessed the day Moseley and his British Union of Facists tried to march through the area, the local people mobilised to stop them and it has since became known asthe 'Battle of Cable Street', there were many injuries that day and no-one should be surprised if Hannah was there to treat them.

Once in her own practice she worked endless hours, and remembering her own childhood she would encourage her child patients to study, even having them bring their books to her so she could help them with their reading. At this time Hannah was also called on as a police doctor, and duringWorld War Two was the doctor in charge of air raid shelters at Wapping, Hannah took to this extra responsibility with her usual energy, going from shelter to shelter even though the bombs were dropping around her.

One night during the Blitz she was attending to residents at Orient Wharf in Wapping when an explosion blew her down the shelters steps, typically of Hannah she merely picked herself up and bandaged her painful ankle and continued treating her patients, it was only when she had finished four hours later that it was discovered she had broken her ankle. As well as treating those in shelters Hannah worked alongside the ARP wardens in freeing those trapped by the fallen buildings, for her work she received the George Medal.

In 1942 Hannah moved on once again by enlisting Indian Army Medical Corps where she was known as Captain H Billing, she soon arrived in Assam where she treated the sick and wounded British soldier fighting in the steamy heat of the Burmese jungle, and here she accounted the two diseases of Malaria and typhus. In 1944 a grain shortage meant starvation for thousands who poured into Calcutta where her work among the thousands of starving mothers and children earned her an MBE, but Hannah was too busy to leave India to collect it at Buckingham Palace, instead she asked that it be posted to her.

When Hannah returned to England the NHS had been established, so she returned to Watney Street and worked within the NHS for the next twenty years. In 1964 she decided to retired and parties all over the eastend were held in her honour by the people she called the salt of the earth. She had decided to retire to Israel, and although the people were sad to see her leave they agree that she had earned a well deserved rest, but they really should have known that wasn't Hannah's style.

Once in Israel and settled in her new home in Caesarea Hannah couldn't rest and she began working in the Israeli and Arab villages, where she continued to do so for the next twenty years.

Hannah died in 1987 and 'The Angel of Cable Street' finally folded her wings and rested, However her memory remains close to Cable Street where you can find Angel Mews.
The inscription on her grave in Hadera Cemetery Israel reads: 'In loving memory of Hannah, who devoted her life to healing the sick in England and in Israel'.

Phoebe Hessel (The Woman Who Went to War for Love)

Phoebe Hessel was born in Stepney in 1713 and baptized at the local church of St Dunstans. There are two stories of her early life, one that when her mother died young her father, who was a soldier had two options one to put her into care of the parish, or two take him with him, he chose the second option but as girls or women weren't allowed in the army he dressed her as a boy taught her the fife and drum and returned with Phoebe to his unit.

The second is a little more romantic, it is said that when Phoebe was fifteen years old she fell desperately in love with a soldier named Samuel Golding, when he was recalled to duty Phoebe couldn't bear the thought of their separation so she dressed herself as a man and went off to war beside the man she loved.

Which ever story is true one thing that can't be denied is that Phoebe did disguise herself as a man and join the army. She fought with the 5th Regiment of Foot this was one of the 'Six Old Corps', which entitled it to use a badge (St George killing the Dragon) on its Regimental Colours. She stayed in the army for seventeen year seeing action in the Caribbean and Europe.

It was while she was in under the command of the Duke of Cumberland fighting for the Austrian succession in Belgium that she was wounded in the arm by a French bayonet and was invalided out of the army, or at least that was one story claims, for just like her early life this part also has two claims, that being the first and the second being that it was Samuel Golding that was wounded and invalided out, and not wanting to be separated from him once again she disclosed her secret to the wife of their commanding officer who obtained her discharge.

Once back in civvy street the two married and settled in Plymouth where the couple had nine children, all but one died in infancy and their only surviving son died while serving at sea. When Samuel died she moved to Brighton and married a fisherman Thomas Hessel. Phoebe was eighty years old Thomas died so with the little money she had she bought a donkey and traveled Brighton and the surrounding villages selling fish and vegetables. Soon however this became too much for a woman of her years so she settled for selling oranges, gingerbread and pincushions at the corner of Marine Parade and Old Steine where her customers came as much for her stories of her long live as for her goods.

As her celebrity grew she came to the attention of the Prince Regent who spent much of his time in Brighton, so that when at the age of ninety five she was forced to go into the workhouse the Prince granted her half a guinea a week, with this Phoebe left the workhouse and began selling her wares once again. When in 1820 the Prince succeeded to the throne he remembered Phoebe and invited her to his coronation, which was an honour he didn't extend to his own wife Caroline of Brunswick who was forbidden to attend the ceremony, she was in fact turned away at the doors of Westminster Abbey while the ceremony took place inside.

Phoebe died the following year at the age of one hundred and eight and was buried in a prime plot in St. Nicholas' Churchyard, a local pawnbroker, Hyam Lewis, paid for the headstone which marks her grave, the inscription reads:

''In Memory of Phoebe Hessel who was born at Stepney in the Year 1713. She served for many years as a private soldier in the 5th Reg. of foot in different parts of Europe and in the year 1745 fought under the command of the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Fontenoy where she received a bayonet wound in her arm. Her long life which commenced in the time of Queen Anne extended to the reign of George IV by whose munificence she received comfort and support in her latter years. She died at Brighton where she had long resided: December 12th 1821 Aged 108 Years.'' Although Phoebe had moved away from her eastend roots the eastend didn't forget her, and if you should ever walk along Hessel Street perhaps you'll give a thought to the young woman who went of to warrather than be seperated from the man she loved.

Clara Grant (The Farthing Bundle lady)

Clara Grant was born in a small village in wiltshire in 1867, her father was a local shopkeeper but Clara's dreams stretched further than the confines of the village, in her heart she knew he future lay elsewhere.


She was a bright child and decided at a young age that education would be the way out of poverty for so many people, and as the east end of London was one of the poorest areas in the country this is where she would go.

When she was just thirteen years old she left the security of her family and set out for London, here she became a pupil teacher in St. John’s Infants in Hoxton, the area when Clara arrived there was in a transition from a safe and wealthy area to becomming overcrowded slum. In time Clara moved from Hoxton to a school in Brewhouse Lane Wapping, athough the distnce between the two schools wasn't that great the enviroment was quite different.

Wapping is situated close to the river Thames and of course the London Docks where ships would bring cargo from all over the world, dock areas being as they were Clara would have seem a great deal of poverty, usually caused by the convenience of the many public houses that prolifigated the area.

So when in 1900 Clara Grant became the head teacher of Devons Road school in Bow she was shocked at the amount of local poverty. Like many of those other Victorian English women, and her past experience, she didn't just wring her hands as say how terrible, she set out to do something about it. with

In 1905 the Poplar Distress Committee took a survey of the unemployed and it showed that the area in which Clara was working had the worstfigures in the whole borough. It was the same year that a new school was built and Clara moved to Fern Street. In Clara's class there were ninety children with ages varying from two years old the regime at the school was harsh, and not one Clara agreed with. If children moved in class they were expected to be caned. One day she saw nineteen small boys for not being able to knit.

To Clara this was unexceptable and she made her anger clear that doing useless drills, such as the 'thimble drill' where children had to keep a thimble on their finger for an hour a day were useless, and no way to teach. Instead she put more thoughtful practices in place, she began supplying them with a hot breakfast, for no child can learn if they are hungry, to some she supplied clothes and shoes. For the younger children she devised little games, and early example of 'learning through play'.

Two years later she opened a settlement where adults could go to learn a trade.Women who until then were pay virtually nothing for their work in the 'rag trade' by making dresses they could never afford to buy even if they worked a lifetime came to the settlement, there they could work for themselves producing goods which were sold through the settlement.

She also set up boot clubs, spectacle,cradle and fireguard clubs, as an emphasis on hygiene and safety. As knowledge of her work spread people of all classes began making donations of clothing, toys, beads. games and all sorts of things, most of these were of no practical use to the settlement,then she had the idea of the 'farthing bundle', even, it is said Queen Mary made donations to the cause.

Little bundles of toys, games and various other things were wrapped in newspaper to be sold for a farthing, with the money going back into the settlement funds. Once word got out the settlement was besieged by hundreds of children queuing up from a quarter to sevewn each Saturday morning. So popular were the bundles that eventually boys and girls had to go on alternate weeks.

“Farthing bundles are full of very human things such as children love,” Clara explained. “Tiny toys of wood, or tin, whole or broken, little balls, doll-less heads or head-less dolls, whistles, shells, beads, reels, marbles, fancy boxes, decorated pill boxes, scraps of patchwork, odds and ends of silk or wool, coloured paper for dressing up, cigarette cards and scraps.”

In 1913 an arch had to be fitted to the door bearing the words "Enter now, ye children small. None can come who are too tall." to get a bundle children had too pass under this without stooping.

Clara Grant died in 1949 shortly after receiving an O.B.E for her work and is buried in Tower Hamlets cemetery' She is still remembered though, Devons Road School bears her name and the Fern Street settlement still remains in name and in the shape of an anonymous modern building but the original has vanished with much of the east end that Clara came as a thirteen year old country girl and brought happiness into the lives of so many deprived city children.