FILM · 2022 · USA
Enola Holmes 2
10 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
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The mystery Enola investigates reveals that the matchgirls died of "typhus" because they worked with white phosphorus in the matches. This was a real condition known as phossy jaw. The corrosive nature of the phosphorus they worked with and breathed in every day caused their teeth and then their jawbones to slowly rot away. Even after the link was established, it took decades for white phosphorus to be banned.
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The film's opening references other great detectives of Victorian London: Detective Field, Reginald Swain, Mackenzie Macintosh and Sir Alfred Hornblower. Charles Frederick Field was a real founding member of the Metropolitan Police; an aspiring actor, he was fond of disguises and became a private detective after retiring. He was a friend of Charles Dickens and inspired the character Inspector Bucket in Bleak House. Detective Officer Reginald Swain was a character in the long-running British police series Dixon of Dock Green. Mackenzie Macintosh refers to the Victorian graphic designer Mackenzie Macintosh, wife of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Alfred Hornblower may be a combination of the Victorian toxicologist and medical writer Alfred Swaine Taylor, nicknamed the father of forensic medicine, and Horatio Hornblower, the protagonist of C. S. Forester's naval officer series.
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Most of the exterior scenes in this film were shot in Kingston upon Hull. In response, many of the locations in the series take their names from real places in Hull: The Albion pub (where some scenes were shot) after Albion Street, the Paragon Theatre after Paragon Station, and The Adelphi after the New Adelphi Club.
- #007
As depicted in the film, the Lyon Match company had used Red Phosphorus until two years earlier but switched to the cheaper White Phosphorus as a new innovation that increased profits but sickened the workforce with the previously unknown condition phossy jaw, which the company tried to cover up by blaming typhus. In 1888 this discovery led to a strike at the factory. In reality friction matches were invented in 1816 but were not commercially successful until 1826. Over the following century several inventors improved the process with mixtures that ignited less violently and transferred the flame to the wood more reliably, as well as masking or eliminating the smell of sulphur. In 1830 White Phosphorus became the primary ingredient and remained so until 1898, when phosphorus sesquisulphide was discovered to offer a safe and cheap alternative, and many countries had banned the use of White Phosphorus in matches by the turn of the century. Red Phosphorus was first discovered in 1850, eliminating the health effects but remaining a niche alternative in matchmaking because its production was three times more expensive. Phossy jaw was first diagnosed in Vienna in 1839 and its cause was linked to White Phosphorus in 1844. Its toxic effects in matches were known, and consuming a box of matches containing a collectively lethal dose was a known cause of accidental death in children and a method of deliberate suicide. Bryant & May was a white phosphorus match manufacturer first founded in 1843 by a Quaker couple, but by the mid-1850s it had become one of the largest match manufacturers, employing 5,000 people in the 1880s. In 1850 Bryant and May began importing Red Phosphorus matches from Sweden as an alternative product, but in 1855 the manufacturer could not meet demand, so Bryant and May bought the patent and opened their own factory to produce them in 1856, though because of unsuitable production costs the company increasingly turned to child labour to save money. The company was aware of the health consequences and workers who complained of toothache were ordered either to have their teeth pulled or to be dismissed; the company operated a sweating system in which workers were paid by the amount they completed but had their wages docked for unprofessional or inefficient behaviour and were also charged for the glue and string they used, a form of outwork expense that exempted the company from factory regulations and government inspections. The factory workers had a long history of political activism; they had campaigned against a proposed tax on match sales in 1871 and had gone on strike over low wages in 1881, 1885 and 1886. On 23 June 1888 the Marxist and women's suffrage advocate Annie Besant, together with her male suffrage advocate friend Herbert Burrows, wrote an article on behalf of a friend working at the factory about the poor health and safety and low wages there (working hours had recently been cut from 14 to 10 a day because of falling demand due to poor harvests in Ireland). Company management wanted the workers to sign a statement rejecting the article but they refused, and on 2 July a worker was dismissed on an unrelated pretext and 1,400 women walked out. At the end of the first day the company offered to reinstate the dismissed worker, but the women demanded further concessions including an end to the fines that led to wage deductions; a delegation of Sarah Chapman, Mary Cummings and Mrs Naulls held talks with management that proved fruitless, and by 6 July the whole factory was on strike. When the delegation came to see her, Annie Besant was initially horrified to see such drastic action taken without planning and many women now unable to earn an income, but she helped organise their public campaign. On 11 July a meeting was held with three local MPs and there was a great deal of publicity. At first management was adamant, but Bryant, the factory owner and one of the leading Liberals, intervened with management on the workers' behalf, and on 16 July a compromise was reached under which wage deductions including material charges would end, safety for workers using white phosphorus would be improved, and a direct channel to management for grievances would be created, bypassing the foremen who had been found to block earlier complaints and grievances from reaching management. After the strikes public demand for Red Phosphorus matches increased, and in 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own largely automated red match factory paying higher wages, but it could not compete on price and in 1901 its factories were bought by Bryant & May, which also abandoned its own use of white phosphorus that same year. In 1910 the use of White Phosphorus was banned in Britain.
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