The Corruganza box factory in Summerstown, south west London, came onto my radar when I was doing a local First World War centenary project. Going over 1911 census records I was surprised how many women, worked as ‘fancy box makers’ or were employed there in some other way. Later on I even met a few of them, like Rose Mangan and her sister Shirley who worked for the company, then known as Hugh Stevenson & Sons around the time of WW2. Back in 1911, if women didn’t work at one of the numerous laundries in the area, it was very likely they were employed by the box factory. I then came across Bronwen Griffiths’ account of what happened there a few years before, published in a book co-authored with Jo Stanley some 30 years ago called ‘For Love and Shillings’. This was the Corruganza Boxmakers strike and 115 years down the line, we intend to commemorate it with a blue plaque!
There appeared to be very little else written about it, but I started featuring the story on my Guided Walks. So many people seemed to have a relative or friend who worked at the factory. One of my neighbours popped up in a photo of the works football team in 1960. Another produced a watch and chain his Dad was given for long service. It appears the factory was around in some form until the late 1980s but no one seemed to have heard about the Corruganza Boxmakers.
They were 44 young women who in the summer of 1908, went out on strike. This was in response to a pay cut in the firm’s tube rolling, cutting and glueing department and the dismissal of a forewoman with sixteen years experience who had raised objections. A young, largely uneducated group whose action would have been at great personal risk, they were very quickly supported by Mary Macarthur and the recently formed National Federation of Women Workers. Within a month, the strike was over, the women were reinstated and apart from a small deduction in one area, rates resumed to what they were before. History was surely made as the Summerstown women showed the power of a collective response and Mary Macarthur employed tactics which would be used to help women in future actions at Cradley Heath and Bermondsey.
This was a poor area and work at the factory on the banks of the River Wandle was already irregular so reductions of up to 50 percent would have bitten deeply. Cardboard box making was traditionally a home-industry but recent advances had increased mechanisation, making for a dangerous environment where injury was always a possibility. Mutilated hands, fingers stained brown by the stinking glue, extreme exhaustion and stomach pains caused by manipulation of heavy machinery. Some of the workers were girls as young as 12 or 13, ‘small, nimble fingers’ apparently being advantageous in assembling a box.
As Mary Macarthur cranked up the publicity, details of the exchanges and discussions were covered in the local and national press. Mary’s own channel was The Woman Worker, the weekly journal of the National Federation of Women Workers. In this she defined the pay cut as an attempt by the newly promoted owner’s son to impress his father by replacing troublesome workers with younger girls whom he could pay less. Hugh Stevenson had established his first box factory in Manchester in 1859 and the Summerstown works from around 1896 on the site of the Garratt Printworks, an old calico mill. The name ‘Corruganza’ adopted in 1900 reflected the popularity of relatively new corrugated board. By 1914 the company employed 2,610 workers. Recently re-married, Hugh Stevenson had relocated to the area and was raising his new family in Wimbledon with a governess called Barbara Clarson. She may have been the inspiration for the film version of Mary Poppins. (Stevenson’s youngest son Robert went on to work for Walt Disney and directed many very popular films including Mary Poppins).
Mary’s passionate amplification of the strikers’ cause saw donations flood in from all over the country, enough to provide each striker with five shillings a week relief. The highlight of the campaign, plotted largely in Jerry’s Coffee Tavern on Garratt Lane was a fundraising march to Trafalgar Square. They even had a special song to sing along the way;
“If you can’t do any good, don’t do any harm; Live and let live, we all know that’s a charm. Doing good for evil – it’s a saying old but true, take my tip- it’s the finest thing to do! I know – you know, quite as well as me, Its no use bearing animosity. If you have an enemy, try his faults to smother. We’re all as good – as good as one another!”
Top-notch speakers from the labour movement that day included Margaret Bondfield and Herbert Burrows, a key organiser in the Bryant & May Matchgirls’ strike, as well as some of the boxmakers themselves. A set of printed postcards of the occasion helped bolster the strike fund and give us an insight into some of those involved. The names of the great majority of the 44 are unknown, for fear of repercussions. Some do get a mention on the pages of The Woman Worker. Polly Cambridge and Annie Willock who spoke at the event. Alice Chappell who needed great physical strength to work as a roller was crudely referred to by the Stevensons as ‘The Battersea Bruiser’. 14 year old Mike Smith heroically refused a management offer to replace a striking worker. Mary Williams was the sacked forewoman, she was eventually offered her job back but declined. Mary Macarthur crucially also made sure that key Corruganza clients; Cadbury and the Cooperative Wholesale Society were notified of the dubious labour practices in Summerstown.
Thanks to those 1911 census records we do know the names and can walk past the homes of some of the women who worked at the Corruganza box factory around that time and who would have surely been very familiar with the strike. Young women like Alice (19) and Nellie Webb (15), sisters from 52 Headworth Street. Or another pair of sisters a few doors along at No24, Ella Craven (17) and Dorothy (14). On the other side of the road, Rhoda Goodbody (15) from No27. In neighbouring Maskell Road were Annie Stanley (17) and Emma Hammond (19). Louisa Collins (45) was at 11 Turtle Road. All these addresses are so close to where this plaque will be placed. Flood damage in 1968 saw these streets literally washed away, to be replaced by Burtop Road estate.
Two families sometimes lived in these small terraced houses, like at No11 Bellew Street where Mary Kate West (43) was a boxmaker, as were two of her daughters Mary (18) and Annie (16). Anne Parkman (36) was the fourth boxmaker at this address. They probably walked to work with Marion Buckley (15) who lived a few doors along at No17. At 8 Squarey Street the Dewar family had a house to themselves and they needed it as 14 people lived there. Their 12 children included Agnes (14) and two boys John (21) and William (19) all working at the box factory. Alice Grenville (14), a ‘fancy packer’ was resident at 49 Burmester Road with two younger sisters probably keen to follow her into the factory.
At 38 Aboyne Road, Mary Homes (24) was a ‘fancy box hand’, presumably a step up from her sister Lily (16) a straightforward ‘box hand’. Next door at No40 was another boxmaker Evelyn Drake (21) living with her widowed mother who worked as a charwoman. At 841 Garratt Lane, now a Chinese takeaway, was boxmaker Edith Wilkes (26) daughter of a boot repairer. Emily Smith (28) and her sister-in-law Mary Ward (19) both ‘cardboard box makers’ were at 753 Garratt Lane – now the site of Burmester House. At No1 Keble Street, John Hames (49) was a ‘gas engine driver’ at the Corruganza. Ethel (25) and Sybil (19) were boxmakers and son Alfred (22) a fitter at the factory. Across the road at No8 were Esther Figgest (22) and her sister Rosa (18) both ‘fancy boxmakers’. A few doors down at No16 was Louie Moorhouse (17). Lilian Cousins (17) ‘cardboard boxmaker’ lived at 80 Summerstown near the old White Lion pub. There are so many more.
Discussions with the Board of Trade resolved the dispute fairly swiftly. Sophy Sanger (above) who went on to have a distinguished career as a labour law reformer and became the first woman to become Section Chief of the International Labour Organization, represented the strikers. Clearly the reputation of the Corruganza had taken a knock. A further newspaper spat in The Times saw the firm deny it had given way. Mary Macarthur was quick to counter that. By 1920 the company had reverted to calling itself Hugh Stevenson & Sons and it seems there was further unrest around that time. A major fire in 1924 caused extensive damage to the site and 600 workers were temporarily laid off.
Despite all that, they remained a major employer in the area for over six decades and further changes of name. Their own publicity material including some fascinating film footage from 1937 portrays a community-focused organisation and a contented workforce enjoying lunch-breaks on the banks of the Wandle, excursions to Brighton and lots of sport and social activities. Older residents have memories of the firm’s boxes being used to salvage people’s belongings from bombed houses.
In 2015 Mary Macarthur made the news again with a blue plaque on her home in Golders Green. We got in touch with Cathy Hunt who was putting together ‘Righting the Wrong’ a new book about her. Cathy visited the area to tour the factory site and hear more. She came back again to deliver a talk at Tara Arts. Clearly the story of the courageous young women who took on a powerful opponent in the summer of 1908 needed to be more widely known and for that reason we will be unveiling a commemorative plaque on Saturday 20th May. Funds for that have been raised over a two year period through people coming on our Walks and generously donating. These have often been part of programmes such as London Unseen, the annual Wandsworth Heritage Festival or Wandle Fortnight.
The plaque won’t be on the site of the factory – still an industrialised area and not easily accessed. Instead it will be placed in a prominent position on a nearby housing estate, defiantly looking away from the factory towards Garratt Lane, the road along which the women marched on their way to Earlsfield Station and Trafalgar Square. Before they were irretrievably damaged by severe flooding in 1968, this was the location of a cluster of terraced streets in which many of the factory workers lived. The plaque will be passed everyday by thousands of people on one of south London’s busiest roads and is close to Burntwood, a large girl’s secondary school. Before the unveiling event I will be doing a Guided Walk of the area, visiting the factory location and passing the homes of many of the workers. Everyone is welcome and we will be joined by guest speakers and feature a beautiful banner celebrating the Corruganza Boxmakers, created by local artist Sharon McElroy. Full details below!