May 2021
Newsletter The Early History of the Nottingham Female Cigar Makers Union ‘The world is my country; mankind is my brethren and to do good is my religion’ Words spoken by Annie Briant reported in the Boston Guardian on the fifth of November 1892 addressing the women’s workers at Boston Thorns Cigar Factory, on the issues of sweated labour, fining and injustice. Briant, founder and secretary of the Nottingham Society of Female Cigar Makers, had herself been dismissed from Thorns for insubordination. Born in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1858, she had been apprenticed to the firm as a young girl. Sacked from her post, by the age of 21 Briant had left Boston for Nottingham, where she settled, married, and had three children. The family lived at 10 Morley Terrace, Carrington. Briant and her husband were both employed as cigar makers at the firm of Robinson and Barnsdale, on the corner of Newdigate and Russell street, Nottingham. Established in 1877, the factory employed two hundred and fifty workers, two thirds of them women and young girls. In 1882 the owners opened a new outlet in rooms leased at the Guildhall, Grantham, Lincs. By the mid 19th century cigar making was widely established in England. The factories had few industrial overheads, the exception being shipping and storage of the raw tobacco. From the 1850s onwards the factories employed women in increasing numbers, establishing cigar making as a female job, especially those manufactured for mass consumption. A commonly held assumption was that women were employed for their dexterity; however, it is more likely they were paid less thus maximising profits. The making process relied on a series of stages with some of the work considered as unskilled, for example grading the tobacco leaves and sorting, referred to as stripping. The process of moistening the cigar and creating the mixture was viewed as skilled labour undertaken by men. The actual creation of the cigar, or rolling was classified as skilled labour and was largely the role of women workers, who had completed a five -year apprenticeship, commencing at the age of fourteen or fifteen. The final stage of packing and boxing was supplied by unskilled workers. Mechanisation of the process started to be introduced gradually in the first decades of the 20th century. There were several cigar manufacturers in Nottingham, the most well-known being the firm of Players, formed in 1887 which became a PLC in 1895. It joined thirteen other British tobacco and cigarette companies in 1901, including WD and HO Wills of Bristol to create Imperial Tobacco in response to competitive threats from America. Other local cigar makers