Enola Holmes 2 follows the titular character through her first official case, which is based on the true story of the Match Girls’ Strike of 1888. The film explores the idea of sisterhood when Enola joins forces with Bessie and Mae. The newcomers are inspired by the Match Stick Girls, a group of hardworking women who demanded justice in an 1888 strike. The Match Girls’ Strike of 1888 was an industrial action by the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant & May match factory in Bow, London. The strike was a significant turning point in the evolution of women's empowerment and workers' rights. 

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The year was 1888, and the setting was Bow in London's East End, a district where some of society's poorest people lived and worked. The Match Girls' Strike was a move by the Bryant and May factory workers in response to dangerous and unyielding demands that endangered their health for a small remuneration. The demanding physicality of the job took its toll on many of the girls, who began working at the factory at the age of thirteen.

 

Bryant and May were one of twenty-five match factories in the country, with only two not using white phosphorus in their manufacturing process. Bryant and May continued to employ thousands of women and girls in its production line, many of whom were of Irish descent and from the poor surrounding area, with little desire to change and compromise on profit margins. The matchmaking industry was thriving, and the market for it was expanding.

 

Meanwhile, after growing dissatisfaction with the poor working conditions, the final straw came in July 1888 when one female worker was wrongfully dismissed. The result of a newspaper article exposed the factory's harsh working conditions, prompting management to force signatures from workers refuting the claims. Unfortunately for the employers, many workers had had enough, and when a worker refused to sign, she was fired, setting off outrage and the strike that ensued.

 

Herbert Burrows had initially established contact with the factory workers, and when Annie Besant later met with many of the young ladies, she learned of their awful experiences. Following this visit, Annie Besant quickly published an exposé in which she detailed the working conditions, comparing it to a "prison house" and portraying the girls as "white wage slaves."

 

Such an article would prove to be a courageous move as the matchstick industry, at the time, was extremely strong and had never been challenged successfully before. Unfortunately for the company executives, they had completely misread the growing sentiments, which incited them to down tools and travel to the newspaper offices in Fleet Street instead of oppressing the women. After the unfair dismissal in July 1888, many more match girls came out in support, quickly escalating the walkout into a full-scale strike of around 1500 workers.

 

Herbert Besant and Annie Burrows were instrumental in organizing the campaign that marched women through the streets, outlining their demands for higher pay and better working conditions. Despite this, the girls continued to spread their message defiantly, including a visit to Parliament, where the contrast between their poverty and Westminster's wealth was a sobering sight for many. Meanwhile, factory management wanted to minimize their bad publicity as soon as possible, and with the public on their side, the bosses were forced to compromise just weeks later, offering significant improvements in both pay and conditions, most notably the elimination of their stringent fining practices. It was an unprecedented victory over powerful industrial lobbyists, as well as a sign of the changing times, as the public state had empathized with the plight of working women.

 

Another result of the strike was the establishment of a new Salvation Army match factory in the Bow area in 1891, which offered better wages and working conditions and no use of white phosphorus in production. Unfortunately, the extra costs incurred by changing many of the processes, as well as the elimination of child labor, resulted in the business's failure. Despite the changes imposed by the strike, it would take more than a decade for the Bryant and May factory to stop using phosphorus in its production. After years of public awareness of white phosphorus's disastrous health effects, the House of Commons finally passed an act prohibiting its use in matches in 1908.

 

The Match Girl Strike of 1888 catalyzed other working-class labor activists to establish unskilled worker unions, ushering in a wave known as "New Unionism." The Match Girl Strike paved the way for significant changes in the industrial setting, but more needed to be done. Its most visible impact was perhaps a growing public awareness of the conditions, lives, and health of some of society's poorest, whose neighborhoods were far removed from those of Westminster's decision-makers.