Women and girls and a young boy at work in Bryant & May’s match factory, Fairfield Road, Bow, London Photo: The Illustrated London News (London, 1871)
Quakers: good employers?
Symon Hill looks at employment practices within the Quaker world
Victorian Quakers have a good image. They are hailed as exemplary employers and pioneers of social change and, in most cases, they were: but in 1888, conditions at a Quaker-owned company were so bad that they triggered one of the first major strikes in British history.
The women working at Bryant & May’s match factory in Bow, London, had been suffering for years from the effects of white phosphorous. This came on top of a fourteen-hour-day and fines for minor errors.
When the left-wing campaigner Annie Besant wrote an article condemning the conditions, the company’s owners insisted that their workers sign a statement disputing her claims. When most refused to do so, the managers identified a supposed ringleader and sacked her on a pretext. But they had underestimated their workers’ frustration. By the end of the day, 1,400 women were on strike.
The women’s courage is all the more remarkable given that striking workers had almost no protection in law. Bryant & May offered to reinstate the sacked worker, but the women decided this was not enough. After two weeks, the company caved in. They agreed to abolish fines, implement clear grievance procedures and allow meals to be eaten in a clean room uncontaminated by factory materials.
No wonder the incident features so prominently in histories of trade unionism. But it is rarely mentioned by Quakers. Perhaps it is understandable that we prefer to concentrate on more progressive companies such as Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s. Deborah Cadbury’s new book Chocolate Wars offers a fascinating history of ‘Quaker capitalism’, which she presents as a widespread movement with enlightened values; but she does not mention the Bryant & May strike.
A more varied picture is presented in The Quakers: Money and Morals by historian James Walvin, who is by no means unsympathetic to Friends. He considers that Quaker paternalism ‘stood in contrast to the tougher regimes elsewhere’. He adds that most Quaker employers ran a ‘tight commercial operation’ and ‘were rarely able to forge a sense of fraternity with their workforce’.
A few Quaker business-people did make fundamental changes to the nature of employment. William Higgins, a manual worker at Cadbury’s, said that ‘hope sprang up in the hearts of everyone’ when they heard that the company had bought the land to build a ‘factory in a garden’ in 1878. As Cadbury’s factory moved to Bournville, it was fitted with heated changing rooms and recreation areas. Over time, homes with gardens were added, and a doctor and dentist provided free of charge. Joseph Rowntree built the village of New Earswick along similar lines.
These villages were paternalistic rather than egalitarian; they were inspired by a belief that a better environment, and one without pubs and bookies, led to healthier and more productive workers. Towards the end of his life, Joseph Rowntree also started to explore profit-sharing. By 1918, he was attacking the division ‘between the holders of capital on one side and the workers on the other’. George Cadbury also became more radical in later life, arguing that ‘speculators, trust mongers and owners of enormous wealth are the great curse of this world’.
Large Quaker businesses may be a thing of the past, but they still inspire Quaker employers. The Quakers & Business Group refer to ‘a long tradition of respect for all those working with us, treating them as equals’. They encourage Friends to ‘reflect on what is the equivalent today for their workplace’.
Most Quaker employers today are not private businesses. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), the formal organisation of British Quakers, employs over 100 people, mostly at Friends House in London. Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham has over sixty staff. Others are employed by independent organisations inspired by Quakerism, such as the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Quaker Social Action and The Friend Publications Ltd.
A non-Quaker employee at a Quaker organisation told the Friend: ‘The Quaker principles, particularly equality, affect the way I’m treated. I definitely feel it here as an employee. The organisation lives up to its principles.’ She said that managers are always ready to hear the staff’s ideas. But she is frustrated that some ideas are not acted on ‘for fear of offending Quakers’. She explained, ‘It’s not that the Quakers managing me disagree with the ideas but that they fear other Quakers will disagree with them’.
Questions of pay continue to come up. BYM ensures a pay ratio of no more than four to one between its highest and lowest paid staff. One former member of BYM staff said to the Friend: ‘The pay and conditions were good, but the attitude that the organisation had towards its staff was nineteenth-century’. He described Friends House as ‘a very paternalistic environment’ and insisted that ‘staff want autonomy and they want respect.’
Speaking as a Quaker, he said, ‘You get to work with passionate people on stuff that’s actually important. When it’s all going well, it’s fantastic.’ But he added that, ‘When the job was rewarding it was ultimately despite the fact that it was working within Quaker structures rather than because of it’. He said that a ‘spirit-deadening bureaucracy’ often takes the place of genuine Quaker discernment.
One of the most creative forms of Quaker employment has been the peaceworker scheme run by Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW). Four people are recruited annually to spend a year on the staff of a peace organisation in the UK. Their salaries are paid by BYM, making a significant difference to peace groups with limited funds.
Securing a place on the scheme is very competitive both for the organisations bidding to host placements and for the applicants. Hosts have included St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation, the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium and the Alternatives to Violence Project.
Abi Haque, who is placed at the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), described the scheme as a ‘great opportunity’. As well as being very satisfying in the short term, she said it ‘opens doors in the long term for understanding your skills and how to make them socially productive’.
Abi’s experience of Quaker employment has been entirely positive. ‘Working for the Quakers is amazing,’ she said, ‘In terms of how we’re all looked after and how an employer might treat an employee’.
