Simon Schama TV - Jim Al-Khalili: Chemistry: A Volatile History TV - Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006 - Amanda Vickery TV - Tony Robinson TV -
Searching round for a woman’s cause Annie [Besant] found one in the teenage match-girls who worked amidst phosphorous fumes for Bryant and May in East London. They were paid just between four and ten shillings a week, and if they had dirty feet or an untidy bench they were fined, taking more money out of their already pathetic wages. Most horrifying of all, the girls ran the constant risk of contracting the hideously disfiguring Phossy Jaw, since Bryant and May persisted in the use of phosphorous which other match companies had given up. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Victoria And Her Sisters, BBC 2000
The owners of Bryant and May threatened the girls with instant dismissal if they didn’t sign a document repudiating the article [White Slavery in London] ... A strike committee was formed ... George Bernard Shaw volunteered as the cashier of the strike fund ... Annie Besant and the girls were triumphant. ibid.
Boyle had stumbled upon the secret ingredient of a match ... phosphorus. Jim Al-Khalili, Chemistry: A Volatile History, BBC 2010
More than one million matchsticks went into the construction of this Rolls-Royce, made by Englishman Reg Pollard in 1987. He used the most matchsticks ever recorded in one model – 1,016,711! Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006
What the matchgirls did next. In July 1888 1,400 women and girls walked out through the gates of the Bryant and May match factory here in Bow East London. Amanda Vickery, Suffragettes: Forever! The Story of Women and Power II, BBC 2015
Just what could be achieved with direct action: a new type of political protest was born. Banner: National Federation of Women Workers. ibid.
Life on the factory floor was cheap, a combination of lethal machinery and long hours meant that gruesome accidents, even death, were never far away. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s1e2: Victorians, Channel 5 2020
Matchgirls like Sarah were expected to work fourteen-hour shifts virtually all of it on their feet. ibid.