From match factory to luxury estate

In London you can commonly find homes within historical buildings that originally had a different purpose. These estates are called conversions and include warehouses alongside the river Thames, factories and power stations (yes, exactly, such as the Battersea Power Station). The most interesting aspect of these homes is that they are very beautiful, as they mix old industrial architectures with contemporary design, but they also have fascinating stories to tell.

Today I want to tell you the story of the estate known as Bow Quarter, in Fairfield Road, East London. The frame of the smart apartments is a match factory from the Victorian age, called Bryant and May, active from 1861 to 1979.

Only women used to work there, and they were around 1,200 in the XIX century. Their work consisted in dipping the wood sticks that reached the factory through the nearby Regents Canal into a white phosphorous mix and then box them.

Being in contact with white phosphorous for a long time is very harmful. The most visible physical problem is that the jaws get deformed. When the workers asked the owners of the factory about this weird phenomenon, the company replied giving them a statement to sign, in which the factory denied any responsibility on any health problems. This was literally the fuse (or maybe the match) that started the fire: in 1880 the workers from Bryant and May, led by Annie Besant, started a long strike that ended only when the factory agreed to improve the working conditions.

The factory stay closed for many years until it reopened in 1911, with safer production processes (in the meantime, white phosphorous was banned by low). At that time, it employed 2,000 women. While Bryant and May was closed, the workers were employed by a match factory founded by the Salvation Army and based in the same area. This factory used red phosphorous, less dangerous than the white one.

The risk these women took with their protest was huge, as they could easily end up in starvation. Even though, they understood that human rights are not negotiable and they challenged the ones who were not respecting them. Their protest has become a seminal chapter in the history of the unions and of the women rights. I hope that the ones who today can afford to buy a flat at Bow Quarter know this story and protect its meaning with their daily actions.