Bryant & May

Bryant & May was a British match manufacturer, which today only exists as a brand name owned by Swedish Match. The company was formed in the mid-19th century as a dry goods trader, with its first match works, the Bryant & May Factory, located in Bow, London. It later opened other factories in the United Kingdom, Australia, and other parts of the world.

For the Bryant and May series of crime mystery books, see Christopher Fowler.

The firm was formed in 1843 by Quakers William Bryant and Francis May and survived as an independent concern for over seventy years before undergoing a series of mergers with other matchmakers and later consumer products companies.

Bryant & May was involved in three of the most divisive industrial episodes of the nineteenth century: the sweating of domestic out-workers, the wage "fines" that led to the London matchgirls strike of 1888 and the scandal of "phossy jaw".

Swedish Match owns the registered Bryant & May trade name alongside those of many formerly independent companies once within the Bryant & May group.

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