ABSTRACT
Mrs Besant published the facts and was threatened with an action for libel. This came to nothing, for the firm found a better way, making the girls sign statements that they were contented and that Mrs Besant’s allegations were untrue. Mrs Besant and Herbert Burrows took up their cause and eventually won the day for them, forming the Matchmakers’ Union, of which they became the officials. “As a result of that fight,” said John Scurr many years after, “that factory is one of the model factories. Mrs Besant did much work of that kind, into which it is impossible to enter in detail. Mrs Besant did much work of that kind, into which it is impossible to enter in detail. In her own words, there “came a cry for help from South London, from tin-box makers, illegally fined, in many cases grievously mutilated by the non-fencing of machinery.
