ONE hundred and twenty seven years ago this summer, 1,400 mostly young women and girls shook the East End of London — and, ultimately, the world.

Match-producing firm Bryant & May was a household name in 1888, and immensely wealthy.

But — in a perfect example of the realities of “trickle-down” economics — its workers, at the time forbidden to unionise, earned such low wages that many were malnourished. Their employer’s casual negligence also put them at risk of the deadly and excruciating industrial disease “phossy jaw.”

In early July of 1888, they had had enough. When one young girl was unjustly sacked, 1,400 workmates downed tools and streamed out of the factory gates as one, immediately forming a picket line. 

Police were rushed into the area; newspapers expressed horror at the women’s outrageous failure to “know their place.” But the strikers held firm. Marching to Parliament, they impressed MPs with the justice of their cause.

Pressure mounted on Bryant and May, which was finally forced to accede.

The workers returned triumphant, forming the largest union of women and girls in the country, and ultimately inspiring hundreds of thousands of others to organise against their exploitation.

These were the mothers of the entire modern labour movement and the Labour Party, and nobody’s “poor little matchgirls.” Well before 1888 they scandalised their “betters” with their fearlessness, independence and defiantly colourful dress sense; they paid into “feather clubs” to buy and share communal hats with huge feathers, and could wield the hatpins to good effect if necessary.

This year, award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson of the Morning Star has drawn an exclusive work for the festival encapsulating the spirited women and girls loved by their peers, but not always appreciated by the Establishment.

The first Matchwomen’s Festival was held in 2013. Since then, the matchwomen’s contribution to history has been acknowledged in Parliament.

This Saturday you can celebrate them, and the women and men who fight for freedom and socialist and feminist values today.

• Louise Raw is a labour historian, author and the founder and organiser of the Matchwomen’s Festival.

8 Matchwomen’s festival runs today from 2pm to 10pm at Caravanserai, Canning Town. Tickets are available on the door.