corrections and revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates; The second major type of fire-steel found in the Viking Age is one influenced by Eastern Baltic art. Some have been found in West Scandinavia, where they represent imports. The eastern type of firesteel has an ornate handle, usually of bronze, with a flat plate of steel attached at the bottom edge. The bronze handle many times represents two mounted figures, facing away from one another, although when less-skilled metalworkers copied this fashion the copies often became much less distinguishable. These fire-steels are used along with a long, narrow striking stone, and stones found with these often show a pronounced groove down which the steel was slid to create sparks. Tinder box made from the shells of two half gourds, containing flint, steel, and tinder in form of the pithy flower stem of an agave plant. Collected by R. Kislingbury on Saint Lucia, West Indies, Caribbean Sea, in 1910. Born in slums, driven to work while still children, undersized because under-fed, oppressed because helpless, flung aside as soon as worked out, who cares if they die or go on to the streets provided only that Bryant & May shareholders get their 23 per cent and Mr. Theodore Bryant can erect statutes and buy parks?

One refinement on this technique suggested by B. E. Spencer ("Making Fire with Flint and Steel") is to add a candle to your fire-making kit: Engels did indeed mention Annie Besant, but never with any praise. In fact, she was total persona non grata to both Eleanor Marx and Engels, and it was not long before both the SDF and the Fabians made it clear to her that, while she could speak and write for them, she would never be admitted into their inner circles. In short, the idea that a fabian Lady Bountiful in the shape of Mrs Annie Besant (during her brief five-year period as a ‘socialist’) descended on the politically ignorant matchgirls to lead them to an isolated victory against their particular Bryant and May employers is a nonsense.

Yes. The study by Louise Raw: Striking a Light is a great historical work that gets to the story of the women who organised on and off the job, before Besant became a sort of figurehead. A good read Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage is a Community Interest Company which creatively explores heritage through life stories, project themes and local memories with diverse audiences. I am most grateful to Louise Raw, whose outstanding work first published in 2009 documents in fine detail the strike and the events leading up to it. The NUWM was identified with is leader Wal Hannington (1896-1966), founder member of the CPGB. In 1925 Hannington was one of 12 members of the Communist party convicted at the Old Bailey under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 (in the run-up to the general strike of 1926), and one of the five defendants sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.

When they went out on strike, the matchgirls were already heavily politicised by the reality of their own living conditions, by Ireland and by the propaganda of the socialist revival, which had paid special attention to the East End. One of the oldest and most widespread methods of fire-making is by using tinder, flint, and steel. Even ‘Ötzi’, the natural mummy of a man who lived 5300 years ago in the Ötztal Alps in Austria, was found with flint, iron pyrites, and a collection of different plants for tinder. One aspect of this religious focus appears as small amulets in the shape of a fire-steel found in graves, often with Þórr's Hammer amulets: Percussion fire-starting is the method that seems most commonly to have been in use in the Viking Age: it certainly is the only one that leaves good traces in the archaeological record. This method utilizes a piece of high-carbon steel and flint (or other hard stone that experiences conchoidal fracturing to produce sharp edges, including quartz, quartzite, chert) plus a flammable substance that will ignite with a low-temperature spark and hold the ember well.

The standard myth about the matchgirls’ strike is that, inspired by Mrs Annie Besant’s discovery of their plight, some 1,400 matchgirls went on strike and, with the help of a ‘strike fund’ set up by the Fabians and with Mrs Annie Besant as their strike leader, the matchgirls marched after a three-week strike to total victory.

Whether you're in search of a crossword puzzle, a detailed guide to tying knots, or tips on writing the perfect college essay, Harper Reference has you covered for all your study needs. In 1920, the SDF, renamed the British Socialist Party (BSP), became the largest feeder party to the CPGB, and its late 19th-century unemployed movement inspired the CPGB’s National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM).) [ 8]

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In the exceptionally cold July of 1888, some 1,400 workers went on strike at Bryant and May's match factory in the East End of London. These workers - mainly women and girls - walked out of their workplace and into the history books. Indeed, as the author of this fascinating book notes, the match women's strike has become something of a historical cliche, often the only example of industrial action by female workers that even experts could cite. The Match Girls Strike is “integral to our national story”. [It is a] history lesson that should be taught in our schools. Multiple cardboard and chipboard safety matchboxes, with the "Brymay" trademark, made by Bryant and May, 1920-1960. As a not-for-profit media organisation using constructive journalism to strengthen communities, we have not put our digital content behind a paywall or subscription fee as we think the benefits of an independent, local publication should be available to everyone living in our area.

Photomechanical reproduction of 'Matchgirl Strikes' in front of Bryant and May's factory, showing strikers campaigning for better working conditions, c. 1900

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