2022 Year 4 Second Prize
Matchgirls by Lanika
Match factory of Bryant and May
Six year old girls
Worked twelve hours a day for little pay.
Exposed to white phosphorus
Little did they know
It was painfully cancerous.
Six days a week
Losing their teeth
How could they speak?
Women and girls went on a strike,
Demanded for a change
And fought for their Rights.
Girls got the attention of the people
Within twelve days, bosses agreed to everything
And it was fair and equal.
On 5th July 2022, a new English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled at Bow Quarter (the old Bryant and May Factory) to commemorate the Matchgirls Strike of 1888.
The Matchgirls Memorial ran a schools poetry competition to celebrate the unveiling.
Judges were Alice Trickey-Roberts, English Heritage Education Visits Officer, Tanya Landman, Author, Emma Purshouse, Writer and Poet.
Lanika from Blue Gate Fields Primary School won Second prize in the Year 4 category with the poem, 'Matchgirls'.