Zoom Talk: Annie Besant and the Match Girls Strike with Jeffrey Page

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Annie Besant was a British Socialist and a women’s rights activist.  She became involved in the Match Girls Strike in 1888.

In 1888 the match girls employed by the company Bryant & May in the east end of London went on strike.

On 23rd June 1888, Annie Besant (1847-1933), a campaigner for women’s welfare and rights published an article called ‘White Slavery in London’ in her weekly paper, The Link. She revealed the terrible working conditions and low wages suffered by the young women and girls employed at the factory.

Besant’s article gained a great deal of publicity because the Victorians believed that only ‘inferior races’ engaged in the practice of slavery. In 1833 Britain abolished slavery in most parts of the Empire. To find out that women worked in such dreadful conditions in the match factories shocked many respectable Victorians.

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