Annie Besant (1847-1933), a problematical feminist
Annie Besant (1847 - 1933)
Annie Besant is a problematical figure as can be seen by her curriculum vitae (see sidebar) that charts a career of changing allegiances and persuasions. Yet, she was a figure who commanded respect for grass-roots women, those commonly without a public voice, and the wider public. Just one example of this is her election as a member of the London School Board during a time when she was actively supporting strike action (Match Girls' Strike, 1888), a move that was radical in the face of commercial interests.
Mrs Besant acted as a journalist and a platform speaker throughout her career; she could always fill a hall. She claimed to be a feminist and professed to believe in women’s suffrage, but never campaigned for it. Likewise she claimed to support the campaign to abolish the hated Contagious Diseases Acts, but took no active part in that long fight either. Yet she was politically important to other women’s causes. This can be seen in specific campaigns that she did actively support: her support for birth control; and her support for the Match Girls' Strike at Bryant & May.
The Riddle of Life
From 1874 when, as a woman of 27, she first introduced herself to MP Charles Bradlaugh at the end of a National Secular Society meeting, she was welcomed by him. It was with Bradlaugh that Mrs Besant became embedded in the birth control debate. This debate was important to women, especially those lower down the social scale, because maternal and infantile health was poor and because families struggled to support the vast number of children they sometimes had.
At a superficial glance, Mrs Besant’s advocacy of birth control might seem to give her feminist credibility. However, as her best-selling book The Law of Population makes clear, women’s control over their own bodies was a minor consideration with her, she promoted birth control as she believed large families were the sole cause of poverty. Perhaps then her agenda was rather different to the majority of women who campaigned on this issue (such as Margaret Llewelyn Davies), being based on economics and not health.
In 1877 she stood trial with Bradlaugh at the courts of Old Bailey, where they were convicted of publishing an obscene book, idiosyncratically named Fruits of Philosophy, which explained, and illustrated, the various methods of birth control then available. Mrs Besant and Bradlaugh were only saved from serving their six month sentences on a technicality but the case made Mrs Besant famous. Here was a woman who was not afraid to publicly assert her views and her very being in the realm of political issues. It also marked her out as a radical woman in the public sphere.
Once she became a Theosophist Mrs Besant would repudiate her belief in birth control, and argue that as souls urgently needed bodies to be born into, birth control was unfair to souls. This view arose from her new religious convictions.
Her support of the Match Girls' Strike shows Mrs Besant actively working for women who did not have their own public voice. Mrs Besant gave them one and a famous one at that. Mrs Besant became aware of the Girls through a lecture, by another women, at the Fabian Society and was horrified when she heard about the pay and conditions of the women working at the Bryant & May match factory. The Girls worked fourteen hour days, in bad conditions and suffered illness directly due to the work they did, the yellow phosphorous used in match production produced a kind of bone cancer known as phossy jaw. The situation was compounded by low pay and the fact that the Girls often did not receive their full salary because the factory operated a system of fines for offences such as going to the toilet without permission. What made the plight of the Girls even more shocking was the fact that the Government was fully aware of phossy jaw, indeed phosphorous was banned in Sweden and the USA but the British government had refused to follow their example, arguing that it would be a restraint of free trade. Here were a group of women being exploited by the public sphere in the name of trade.
Mrs Besant decided to act and she had a forum in which to do so, publishing in the weekly agitational paper she had recently founded, The Link, an article entitled 'White Slavery in London' about the Girls. Bryant & May then demanded that the Girls sign a statement saying that they were happy with their working conditions. Those that refused to were sacked causing 1400 of the women at Bryant & May to go on strike, as strike action was the only means of opposition they had. Mrs Besant supported them by publicly calling for a boycott of the company, by taking a deputation of 50 of the Girls to Parliament, and by agreeing to become the leader of the newly formed Matchgirls’ Union. The impetus for the Union came from the grass-roots, from the Girls themselves, but they clearly saw the benefits of having a woman with a public voice firmly on their side.
After three weeks of striking, Bryant & May conceded to most of the workers' demands: the women successfully obtained the abolition of the fines system and the re-employment of those sacked. The dispute was the first strike by unorganised workers (although they did quickly organise themselves once the impetus was rolling) to gain national publicity. This was no doubt partly due to the youth of many of the Girls and phossy jaw but it was also due to the publicity figures such as Mrs Besant gave the campaign. It also illustrated that workers could organise into unions in order to successfully campaign for rights. The fact that it was grass-roots women with a famous woman at their head makes the achievement all the more poignant.
Bishopsgate Institute holds a large selection of papers, correspondence and pamphlets by Annie Besant within its Charles Bradlaugh archive. The Bradlaugh archive can be searched online at the Access to Archives website.
