Bow Match Women’s Strike

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Mike Gapes

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) on setting out the case for these women workers so well and for placing it in context, then and now. My hon. Friend said that this was a story that she grew up with. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) reminded us that she was taught this story in O-level history lessons. I, too, first met this story doing O-level history in rural Leicestershire. A young woman teacher taught us for just one period a week about the social history of struggle and endeavour across the ages, and the one bit that I really remember is the match girls’ strike. It was taught as the match girls’ strike, and there was a romanticism to it. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham told us the story through the eyes of the people struggling at the time, thanks to the excellent work of Louise Raw, in “Striking a Light”, and others.

It is interesting that the way we view history changes over time. None the less, that story made an impact on me, as a 14-year-old, because it related to my experiences of visiting my aunties and my father, working in the densely populated boot and shoe factories in the village of Sileby, where they all worked and strived to earn the money to bring us all up—me and my cousins—in our family. The story of struggle and endeavour in the 1880s struck a chord in respect of the working conditions of the 1960s.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) reminded us that often we hear pleas for flexible working, but that that can, at its worst, be as it was at Bryant & May in the 1880s. Currently, there are zero-hour contracts and the minimum wage, for example. We have come a long way, but there is still further to go. Visiting factories—steelworks and distribution centres—in my constituency, I see a different working environment enjoyed by workers today, compared with workers of yesteryear.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, have memories to do with the match girls issue, although I will not go into them.

I agree with my hon. Friend that working standards and health and safety in this country have improved, but we have outsourced our manufacturing, through globalisation, to people in Vietnam, Indonesia, China, India and Bangladesh, for example, which my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) mentioned. Women and men are working in appalling conditions, often in authoritarian countries that claim to be communist but actually do not allow free, independent trade unionism.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his reminder that, as we make progress in the United Kingdom, some of these difficulties are exported to other parts of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West reminded us about the recent tragic circumstances in the garment industry in Bangladesh, which had an immediate influence and an impact on the morale and feelings of people in my constituency, which has a large Bangladeshi population. We live in a global world and we need to show leadership and take action, as my hon. Friend has indicated, to get better living and working conditions for everybody.

It is worth looking at how the newspapers reported the case at the time; it is a reminder of how what is written in the press is sometimes not altogether accurate. In an interview with Bartholomew Bryant in The Star newspaper in July 1888, he was asked,

“What is the cause of the strike?”

He responded,

“Why, a girl was dismissed yesterday; it had nothing to do with Mrs Besant. She refused to follow the instructions of the foreman, and as she was irregular anyway, she was dismissed.”

He was then asked,

“Is it not very unusual that all the girls should strike because of one?”

He replied,

“Yes, but I've no doubt they have been influenced by the twaddle of one.”

The Times of June 1888 had a slightly different perspective:

“The pity is that the matchgirls have not been suffered to take their own course but have been egged on to strike by irresponsible advisers. No effort has been spared by those pests of the modern industrialized world to bring this quarrel to a head.”

Ms Raw’s work, “Striking a Light”, shows how wrong such judgments were, and we are reminded that the press does not always report things accurately. Sadly, that even relates to some of the things we read today.

It is important to recognise the role that the match women played in establishing better health and safety and trade union rights. They achieved so much in so little time, but left such a large legacy. I am sure the Minister will recognise that when he speaks today.