Annie Besant - Fairfield Road, London, UK - Blue Plaques on Waymarking.com

The BBC History website has an article about Annie Besant that tells us:

Besant was a British social reformer, campaigner for women's rights and a supporter of Indian nationalism.

Annie Woods was born in London on 1 October 1847. She had an unhappy childhood, undoubtedly partly due to her father's death when she was five. Annie's mother persuaded her friend Ellen Marryat, sister of the writer Frederick Marryat, to take responsibility for her daughter and Ellen ensured that Annie received a good education.

In 1867, Annie married Frank Besant, a clergyman, and they had two children. But Annie's increasingly anti-religious views led to a legal separation in 1873. Besant became a member of the National Secular Society, which preached 'free thought', and also of the Fabian Society, the noted socialist organisation.

In the 1870s, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh edited the weekly National Reformer, which advocated advanced ideas for the time on topics such as trade unions, national education, womens' right to vote, and birth control. For their pamphlet on birth control the pair were brought to trial for obscenity, but were subsequently acquitted.

Besant supported a number of workers' demonstrations for better working conditions. In 1888 she helped organise a strike of the female workers at the Bryant and May match factory in east London. The women complained of starvation wages and the terrible effects on their health of phosphorus fumes in the factory. The strike eventually led to their bosses significantly improving their working situation.

Social and political reform seems not to have satisfied 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, Besant helped to spread Theosophical beliefs around the world, notably in India.

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.

In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929.

Besant died in India on 20 September 1933.

The Spartacus Educational website tells us about the match girls strike:

In June 1888, Clementina Black gave a speech on Female Labour at a Fabian Society meeting in London. Annie Besant, a member of the audience, was horrified when she heard about the pay and conditions of the women working at the Bryant & May match factory. The next day, Beasant went and interviewed some of the people who worked at Bryant & May. She discovered that the women worked fourteen hours a day for a wage of less than five shillings a week. However, they did not always received their full wage because of a system of fines, ranging from three pence to one shilling, imposed by the Bryant & May management. Offences included talking, dropping matches or going to the toilet without permission. The women worked from 6.30 am in summer (8.00 in winter) to 6.00 pm. If workers were late, they were fined a half-day's pay.

Annie Besant also discovered that the health of the women had been severely affected by the phosphorous that they used to make the matches. This caused yellowing of the skin and hair loss and phossy jaw, a form of bone cancer. The whole side of the face turned green and then black, discharging foul-smelling pus and finally death. Although phosphorous was banned in Sweden and the USA, the British government had refused to follow their example, arguing that it would be a restraint of free trade.

On 23rd June 1888, Beasant wrote an article in her newspaper, The Link. The article, entitled White Slavery in London, complained about the way the women at Bryant & May were being treated. The company reacted by attempting to force their workers to sign a statement that they were happy with their working conditions. When a group of women refused to sign, the organisers of the group was sacked. The response was immediate; 1400 of the women at Bryant & May went on strike.

William Stead, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, Henry Hyde Champion of the Labour Elector and Catharine Booth of the Salvation Army joined Besant in her campaign for better working conditions in the factory. So also did Hubert Llewellyn Smith, Sydney Oliver, Stewart Headlam, Hubert Bland, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. However, other newspapers such as The Times, blamed Besant and other socialist agitators for the dispute.

Besant, Stead and Champion used their newspapers to call for a boycott of Bryant & May matches. The women at the company also decided to form a Matchgirls' Union and Besant agreed to become its leader. After three weeks the company announced that it was willing to re-employ the dismissed women and would also bring an end to the fines system. The women accepted the terms and returned in triumph. The Bryant & May dispute was the first strike by unorganized workers to gain national publicity. It was also successful at helped to inspire the formation of unions all over the country.

Annie Besant, William Stead, Catharine Booth, William Booth and Henry Hyde Champion continued to campaign against the use of yellow phosphorous. In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own match-factory in Old Ford, East London. Only using harmless red phosphorus, the workers were soon producing six million boxes a year. Whereas Bryant & May paid their workers just over twopence a gross, the Salvation Army paid their employees twice this amount.

William Booth organised conducted tours of MPs and journalists round this 'model' factory. He also took them to the homes of those "sweated workers" who were working eleven and twelve hours a day producing matches for companies like Bryant & May. The bad publicity that the company received forced the company to reconsider its policy. In 1901, Gilbert Bartholomew, managing director of Bryant & May, announced it had stopped used yellow phosphorus.