Bryant & May
Bryant & May was a British
The firm was formed in 1843 by Quakers William Bryant and Francis May and survived as an independent concern for over seventy years before undergoing a series of mergers with other matchmakers and later consumer products companies.
Bryant & May was involved in three of the most divisive industrial episodes of the nineteenth century: the
Swedish Match owns the registered Bryant & May trade name alongside those of many formerly independent companies once within the Bryant & May group.
Formation
Bryant & May was formed in 1843 by
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 lumber mill to make splints from imported Canadian pine.[7][8] 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.[9]
In the 1880s Bryant & May employed nearly 5,000 people, most of them female and Irish, or of Irish descent;[8] by 1895 the figure was 2,000 people, of whom between 1,200 and 1,500 were women and girls.[10] The workers were paid different rates for completing a ten-hour day, depending on the type of work undertaken.[11] 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 about 4 s.[12] 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 3 d for having an untidy workbench, talking or having dirty feet—many of the workers were bare-footed as shoes were too expensive; 5 d 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 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 6 d.[13][14]
The match boxes were made through domestic outwork under a
In 1861, at the Fairfield Works, a dilapidated site that had once been used for the manufacture of candles, crinoline and rope, close to the River Lea in Bow, they began to manufacture their own safety matches and "other chemical lights". This site was gradually expanded as a model factory. The public were initially unwilling to buy the more expensive safety matches so they also made the more profitable traditional lucifer match.[18]
In 1871
The demonstration comprised mostly girls between the ages of thirteen and twenty,
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.[24]
The day following the march, Lowe announced in the House of Commons that the proposed tax was being withdrawn.[25]
Bryant and May was involved in three of the most divisive industrial episodes of the nineteenth century, the sweating of domestic out-workers, the wage "fines" that led to the
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.[26] By 1911, it employed more than 2,000 female workers, the largest factory in London.[27]
Sale to, acquisition of, and mergers with other match makers
Bryant & May variously sold itself to, merged with, or took over rivals. These were:
- Bell and Black
In 1885 - factories in Stratford, Manchester, York and Glasgow.[clarify][18]
- Diamond Match
In 1901 the American Diamond Match Company bought an existing match factory in the United Kingdom, at Litherland, near Liverpool, and installed a continuous match making machine that could produce 600,000 matches per hour. Its matches were sold under the Captain Webb, Puck and Swan Vesta brand names. Bryant & May could not compete, so in 1905 it sold a majority 54.5 per cent of its share capital to the (American) Diamond Match Company in return for the assets and goodwill of the British Diamond Match Company.[citation needed]
- S. J. Moreland and Sons
In 1913 Bryant & May took over the Gloucester match maker S.J. Moreland and Sons, who made and sold matches under the trade name England's Glory.
- Swedish Match
In 1927 Bryant & May combined with J. John Masters & Co. Ltd (match importers and owners of the Abbey Match Works, Barking, Essex) and the Swedish Match company's interests in the British Empire (except for major plant in India and elsewhere in Asia) to become the British Match Corporation.[28]
- Albright and Wilson
In 1929, the British Match Corporation set up a jointly-owned company with another Quaker company, The A & W Match Phosphorus Company. It took over that part of Albright and Wilson's Oldbury site which was manufacturing amorphous phosphorus and phosphorus sesquisulfide, as these two chemicals were used in safety matches and strike-anywhere matches, respectively.[29]
- Wilkinson Sword
In 1973 the British Match Corporation merged with Wilkinson Sword to form the new company Wilkinson Match.
Wilkinson Match's shares were acquired by US company Allegheny International from 1978 with Allegheny taking full ownership in 1980. In 1987 Allegheny filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Swedish Match re-acquired the company. In 1990 Swedish Match sold the Wilkinson Sword business, retaining the match business.[30]
Closure
In 1971 the Northern Ireland factory, Maguire & Patterson closed down following a terrorist attack. The original Bow match factory was closed in 1979, when it still employed 275 people; unlike some of the other match factories little recent investment had taken place. The Bow factory site consisted of a number of listed buildings, which have subsequently been converted into the Bow Quarter flats complex.[31]
In the 1980s, factories in Gloucester and Glasgow closed, leaving Liverpool with the last B & M match factory in the UK. It shuttered in December 1994,[32] and was renovated into today’s 'the Matchworks' (grade 2 listed building) and the Matchbox.
The former Australian match factory in Melbourne closed in the mid-1980s. This was converted into offices in 1989.[33]
Some British match names continue to survive as brands of Swedish Match, but are made outside the UK. Some former shaving products survive, manufactured in Germany and sold under the trade name Wilkinson Sword in Europe, and the Schick elsewhere.
Products
Vitafruit
Vitafruit was a confectionery manufactured by the Bryant & May group in 1988. There were three varieties including tropical fruit flavour (Vitafruit), mint (Vitamint) and a throat soother (Vitasooth).
When Swedish Match acquired Bryant & May the confectionery arm of the business was sold and eventually the new owners stopped production of Vitafruit.
Arms
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See also
- Bryant and May Factory, Bow
- Bryant and May Factory, Melbourne
- Mersey Match Factory
- Redheads (matches)
Notes
- ^ £100 in 1850 equates to approximately £11,376 in 2024 pounds, according to calculations based on the Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[4]
- ^ The Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System defined "sweating" as "the evils known by that name are ...:
- A rate of wages inadequate to the necessities of the workers or disproportionate to the work done.
- Excessive hours of labour.
- The insanitary state of the houses in which the work is carried out."[15]
References
- ^ Beaver 1985, p. 25.
- ^ a b Emsley 2000, pp. 80–81.
- ^ a b Arnold 2004, p. 5.
- ^ Clark 2019.
- ^ a b Arnold 2004, p. 6.
- ^ Satre 1982, p. 11.
- ^ Emsley 2000, p. 83.
- ^ a b Arnold 2004, p. 7.
- ^ Raw 2011, p. 93.
- ^ Satre 1982, p. 12.
- ^ Arnold 2004, p. 9.
- ^ Beaver 1985, p. 39.
- ^ Emsley 2000, pp. 92–93.
- ^ Beer 1983, p. 32.
- ^ House of Lords Report on the Sweating System. 1890.
- ^ Emsley 2000, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Satre 1982, p. 10.
- ^ a b c Arnold 2004.
- ^ a b "Leader". The Times.
- ^ Beaver 1985, p. 48.
- ^ a b Raw 2011, p. 144.
- ^ a b c "The Matchmakers' Demonstration". The Guardian.
- ^ a b "The Government and the Matchmakers". The Times.
- ^ Beaver 1985, p. 47.
- ^ Beaver 1985, p. 51.
- ^ "BRYANT AND MAY FACTORY, MAIN BUILDING". historicengland.org.uk. Historic England. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
- ^ "Bryant and May Match Factory, Bow, Greater London". historicengland.org.uk. Historic England. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
- ^ "J. John Masters". The National Archives. Richmond, Surrey. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
- ^ Threfall (1951).
- ^ Competition Commission Reports 1987: Bryant & May and Wilkinson Sword
- ^ Building, 11 June 1993
- ^ The Times, 23 December 1994.
- ^ Sunday Age, 3 December 1995.
- ^ "Bryant and May". Heraldry of the World. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
Bibliography
Books
- Beaver, Patrick (1985). The Match Makers: The Story of Bryant & May. London: Henry Melland. ISBN 978-0-907929-11-6.
- Beer, Reg (1983). The Match Girls Strike, 1888. London: The Labour Museum. OCLC 16612310.
- ISBN 978-0-333-76638-5.
- Raw, Louise (2011). Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History. London: Continuum International. ISBN 978-1-4411-1426-6.
Official reports
- Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System (Report). London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1890. OCLC 976630092.
News articles
- "The Government and the Matchmakers". The Times. 25 April 1871. p. 10.
- "Leader". The Times. 21 April 1871. p. 9.
- "The Matchmakers' Demonstration". The Guardian. 26 April 1871. p. 6. -->
Journals
- Satre, Lowell J. (September 1982). "After the Match Girls' Strike: Bryant and May in the 1890s". Victorian Studies. 6 (1): 7–31. JSTOR 3827491.
Internet and audio-visual media
- Arnold, A. J. (2004). "'Ex luce lucellum'? Innovation, class interests and economic returns in the nineteenth century match trade" (PDF). University of Exeter. ISSN 1473-2904. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
- Clark, Gregory (2019). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 28 January 2019.