Tags
Annie Besant, Charles Dickens, Industrialisation, London, match factory workers, poor working conditions, The link, Victorian England, white slavery
Annie Besant was a British social reformer, campaigner for women’s rights. She was passionate about the rights of women and about the working conditions of women.This article was published in 1888 and focuses on the denunciation of the poor working conditions and unimportance of the working class in Victorian Age. Similar to Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, this article focuses on the poor working conditions and low wages that are paid to women’s by the factory owners. Annie Besant talks about the long working hours (about 12 hours each day) and in contrast the low wages that are being paid to the workers. She explores the living conditions of the factory workers that they earn so little money that they could only live on bread, butter and tea for breakfast and dinner. She also presents the low working conditions and unimportance of the factory workers by giving examples of the fines’ system that was being applied by the factory owners. These fines were applied to all if they arrived late to work or was talking during the working hours. In her article she also gives an example of how unimportant the workers’ lives by quoting; One girl was fined 1s. for letting the web twist around a machine in the endeavour to save her fingers from being cut, and was sharply told to take care of the machine, “never mind your fingers.” She highlights the company Bryant & May which was paying workers so little on the other hand paying huge money and profits to their shareholders.
She presents the idea of the poor and rich by stating that the only thing that the director of the company considers is his own wealth and does not care about the wage of the workers or their working conditions. Once again with I can relate this to Dickens’ Hard Times as the factory workers were called “Hands”. In this article Annie Besant mentions the working class in the eye of the director as “white wage slaves.” Annie Besant attacks Theodore Bryant, the director of Bryant & May match factory, in her article in terms of his decision of deducting wages of the workers in order for him to erect a statue of an eminent statesman who was called William Ewart Gladstone, leader of the liberal party and prime minister four times of England.
I can find many similarities between Besant’s article and Dickens’ Hard Times. There is a similar character from Hard Times, In that novel Josiah Bounderby a self-made man – industrialist was mentioned and in this article Annie Besant mentions about the director of this company who is called Theodore Bryant.
In her article, Annie Besant talks about the economic value of the workers and how they were treated injustice. She challenges the idea of low standard of working class conditions and the way they were treated in the industrialization era of the Victorian age.
You can see a short clip about Annie Besant from the following;
Thank you all very much for reading!
Works Cited
Annie Besant in Black. Digital image. Wikimedia Summons. N.p., 1890. Web. 05 Feb. 2015. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annie_Besant_in_black_standing.jpg>.
The Link 23 June 1888. Digital image. Wikimedia Summons. N.p., 1888. Web. 05 Feb. 2015. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Link_23_June_1888.JPG>.
Scothern, Damon. “Theosophy UK Annie Besant Story.wmv.”Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 06 Apr. 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkJJeBqL1Ns>.