For the Bryant and May series of crime mystery books, see Christopher Fowler.
Advertisement from the Illustrated Guide to the Church Congress 1897
Bryant and May was a British company created in the mid-19th century specifically to make matches. Their original Bryant and May Factory was located in Bow, London. They later opened other match factories in the United Kingdom and Australia, such as the Bryant and May Factory, Melbourne, and owned match factories in other parts of the world.
The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, modern matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matches are packaged in matchboxes, and paper matches are partially cut into rows and stapled into matchbooks. The coated end of a match, known as the match "head", consists of a bead of active ingredients and binder; often colored for easier inspection. There are two main types of matches: safety matches, which can be struck only against a specially prepared surface, and strike-anywhere matches, for which any suitably frictional surface can be used.
Bow is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. Spanning north-south from the Victoria Park to the Limehouse Cut and west-east from Mile End to Stratford, it is built-up and mostly residential, and 4.6 miles (7.4 km) east of Charing Cross.
Bryant and May survived as an independent company for over seventy years, but went through a series of mergers with other match companies and later with consumer products companies; and were taken over.
The registered trade nameBryant and May still exists and it is owned by Swedish Match, as are many of the other registered trade names of the other, formerly independent, companies within the Bryant and May group.
A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym frequently used by companies to operate under a name different from their registered, legal name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name with the relevant government body is often required.
Swedish Match AB is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that makes snus, moist snuff, and chewing tobacco. These products are known as moist smokeless tobacco. The company also makes machine-made cigars, matches, lighters as well as razors, batteries, light bulbs and tooth picks. Swedish Match operates in ten countries, with 5,070 employees (2016). The products are sold in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Formation
A partnership was formed in 1843 between two Quakers, Francis May and William Bryant, to establish a Provisions Merchants business in Tooley Street, London. In 1850 they started importing Swedish matches, produced by Carl and Johan Lundström.[1] Their first order was for 10 or 15 cases of 720,000 matches (each case held 50 gross boxes, with a box holding 100 matches). The next order was for 50 cases; and later orders for 500 cases. This partnership was successful, so Francis May and William Bryant decided to merge the partnership with Bryant's company, Bryant and James, which was based in Plymouth.[1] By 1853 Bryant and May were selling over 8 million boxes of matches per year; which was approximately 50% of the output of the Lundström brothers. By 1860 Bryant and May’s sales had risen to 27.9 million boxes.[1][2]
Tooley Street is a road in central and south London connecting London Bridge to St Saviour's Dock; it runs past Tower Bridge on the Southwark/Bermondsey side of the River Thames, and forms part of the A200 road.
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million of which 2.4 million has a foreign background. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre (57/sq mi). The highest concentration is in the southern half of the country.
In English and related languages, several terms involving the words "great" or "gross" (possibly, from French: grosse thick) relate to numbers involving a multiple of exponents of twelve (dozen):
In 1861, at the Fairfield Works, a dilapidated site that had once been used for the manufacture of candles, crinoline and rope, close to the River Lea in Bow, they began to manufacture their own safety matches and "other chemical lights". This site was gradually expanded as a model factory. The public were initially unwilling to buy the more expensive safety matches so they also made the more profitable traditional Lucifer Matches.[2]
A candle is an ignitable wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a fragrance. A candle can also provide heat, or be used as a method of keeping time. The candle can be used during the event of a power outage to provide light.
A crinoline is a stiffened or structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's skirt, popular at various times since the mid-19th century. Originally, crinoline described a stiff fabric made of horsehair ("crin") and cotton or linen which was used to make underskirts and as a dress lining.
A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibers or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed cord, string, and twine.
Bryant and May was involved in three of the most divisive industrial episodes of the 19th century, the sweating of domestic out-workers, the wage "fines" that led to the London matchgirls strike of 1888 and the scandal of "phossy-jaw". The strike won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce working with the dangerous white phosphorus.[2]
The London matchgirls’ strike of 1888 was a famous industrial action by the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant and May Factory in Bow.
Bryant and May factory in Bow, which was rebuilt in 1910
Mergers with other match makers
To protect its position Bryant and May merged with or took over its rivals. These were:
Bell and Black
In 1885 - factories in Stratford, Manchester, York and Glasgow.[2]
Diamond Match
In 1901 the American match maker the Diamond Match Company bought an existing match factory in the United Kingdom, at Litherland, near Liverpool, and installed a continuous match making machine that could produce 600,000 matches per hour. Their matches were sold under the Captain Webb, Puck and Swan Vestabrand names. Bryant and May could not compete, so in 1905 they bought the assets and goodwill of the British Diamond Match Company; and the (American) Diamond Match Company acquired 54.5 percent of the share capital of Bryant and May.[citation needed]
S. J. Moreland and Sons
In 1913 Bryant and May also took over the Gloucester match maker S.J. Moreland and Sons, who made and sold matches under the trade name England's Glory.
Swedish Match
In 1927 Bryant and May combined with J. John Masters & Co. Ltd (match importers and owners of the Abbey Match Works, Barking, Essex) and the Swedish Match Company's interests in the British Empire (except for major plant in India and elsewhere in Asia) to become the British Match Corporation.[3]
Albright and Wilson
In 1929, the British Match Corporation set up a jointly-owned company with another Quaker company Albright and Wilson: The A & W Match Phosphorus Company. It took over that part of Albright and Wilson's Oldbury site which was manufacturing amorphous phosphorus and phosphorus sesquisulfide, as these two chemicals were used in safety matches and strike-anywhere matches, respectively.[4]
Merger with Wilkinson Sword
In 1973 the British Match Corporation merged with Wilkinson Sword to form the new company Wilkinson Match.
Wilkinson Match's shares were acquired by US company Allegheny International from 1978 with Allegheny taking full ownership in 1980. In 1987 Allegheny filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Swedish Match re-acquired the company. In 1990 Swedish Match sold the Wilkinson Sword business, retaining the match business.[5]
Closure
In 1971 the Northern Ireland factory, Maguire & Patterson closed down following a terrorist attack. The original Bow match factory was closed in 1979, when it still employed 275 people; unlike some of the other match factories little recent investment had taken place. The Bow factory site consisted of a number of listed buildings, which have subsequently been converted into the Bow Quarter flats complex.[6]
In the 1980s, factories in Gloucester and Glasgow closed too leaving Liverpool as the last match factory in the UK. This continued until December 1994.[7] The premises survive today as 'the Matchworks' (grade 2 listed building) and the Matchbox all using the existing buildings with renovations done by Urban Splash.
The former Australian match factory, in Melbourne, closed in the mid-1980s. This was converted into offices in 1989.[8]
The British match brands continue to survive as brands of Swedish Match and are made outside the UK. Other parts of the merged company involved in shaving products survive, and still use the trade name Wilkinson Sword in Europe, and the Schick trade name elsewhere. However, the shaving products are made in Germany.
Products
Vitafruit
Vitafruit was a confectionery manufactured by the Bryant & May group in 1988. There were three varieties including tropical fruit flavour (Vitafruit), mint (Vitamint) and a throat soother (Vitasooth).
When Swedish Match acquired Bryant & May the confectionery arm of the business was sold and eventually the new owners stopped production of Vitafruit.
Phosphorus is a chemical element with symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth. It has a concentration in the Earth's crust of about one gram per kilogram. With few exceptions, minerals containing phosphorus are in the maximally oxidized state as inorganic phosphate rocks.
Oldbury is a town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It is a part of the Black Country, and the administrative centre of the borough of Sandwell.
Johan Edvard Lundström (1815–1888) was a Swedish industrialist and inventor who pioneered the production of safety matches.
Joshua Pusey, was an American inventor and an attorney.
Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI) is a specialty metals company headquartered at Six PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Wilkinson Sword is a brand owned by Edgewell Personal Care for razors and other personal care products sold in Europe. It was founded as a company in London in 1772 by Henry Nock as a manufacturer of guns, made in Shotley Bridge in County Durham.
Bow Quarter is a gated community in Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The building was originally the Bryant and May match factory, and was the site of the Match Girls' strike in the 1880s. The factory was redeveloped in the 1980s, in one of east London's first urban renewal projects.
Albright and Wilson was founded in 1856 as a United Kingdom manufacturer of potassium chlorate and white phosphorus for the match industry. For much of its first 100 years of existence, phosphorus-derived chemicals formed the majority of its products.
The Holmes' Marine Life Protection Association was a United Kingdom company set up in the 19th century to produce marine signal lights and foghorns. It was founded by Nathaniel John Holmes, a telegraph engineer from Middlesex; and it passed to his son Joseph R. Holmes. The company was taken over by Albright and Wilson in 1919.
England's Glory is a brand of non-safety matches, available in the United Kingdom, using a celebrated image of a Victorian battleship, HMS Devastation.
Gustaf Erik Pasch was a Swedish inventor and professor of chemistry at Karolinska institute in Stockholm and inventor of the safety match. He was born in Norrköping, the son of a carpenter. He enrolled at Uppsala University in 1806 and graduated with a master's degree in 1821. Pasch is mostly known for the safety match, but he was also involved with making waterproof concrete for the Göta Canal, manufacture of bank notes and growing of silk worms. He married Augusta Fredrika Vilhelmina Berg in 1827.
Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of 'strike-anywhere' matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline "the smoker's match" although this has been replaced by the prefix "the original" on the current packaging.
WKC Stahl- und Metallwarenfabrik, formerly Weyersberg, Kirschbaum & Cie., is a sword manufacturing company located in Solingen, Germany.
This article details a number of defunct schools that were once located in Sandwell in the West Midlands of England. For details of currently operating schools in Sandwell, please see: List of schools in Sandwell.
Parker Knoll is a British furniture manufacturing company, formed by Frederick Parker, a British furniture manufacturer, and Willi Knoll, a German inventor of a new form of sprung furniture. With roots in the manufacture of high-quality furniture, the brand concentrated on mass-market products from the 1930s to the 1990s. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1950, but taken private in 2004. After financial problems, it was acquired out of administration by Sofa Brands International. In recent years, the brand has moved back to the higher-quality end of the domestic furniture market.
The Mersey Match Factory, later known as The Matchworks, is a former match factory on Speke Road, Garston, Liverpool, England. The factory closed in 1994, and has since been converted into offices and workshops. It had opened in 1921, having been built for Maguire, Paterson and Palmer, and later used by Bryant and May. The factory was the first building in the United Kingdom to be constructed using the flat-slab concrete technique. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.
The Oldbury Branch Railway was a short branch line which ran from Langley Green on the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster line to the town of Oldbury. It also served the Oldbury Division of the manufacturing company, Albright and Wilson. It was owned and operated by the Great Western Railway.
References
Notes
1 2 3 Beaver (1985): Part One: "Building a Business".
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