Early matches A note in the
Yuan and
Ming-era scholar
Tao Zongyi's describes a form of
sulfur taper or match, small pieces of
pinewood impregnated with sulfur, which he claims "impoverished court ladies" used in 577 during the conquest of the
Northern Qi. Around the time of
Marco Polo's supposed visit to China, such sulfur tapers were considered part of the distinctive products of Lin'an (now
Hangzhou) and
Zhou Mi's 1290
Antiquities of the Martial Forest ), while memorializing the traditions of the former
Song capital, listed them prominently among the items sold in its markets. They were known as "candle starters" ) or "little burners" ). A number of different ways were employed in order to light smoking tobacco: One was the use of a spill – a thin object something like a thin candle, a rolled paper or a straw, which would be lit from a nearby, already existing flame and then used to light the cigar or pipe – most often kept near the fireplace in a
spill vase. Another method saw the use of a
striker, a tool that looked like
scissors, but with
flint on one "blade" and
steel on the other. These would then be rubbed together, ultimately producing sparks. If neither of these two was available, one could also use ember tongs to pick up a coal from a fire and light the tobacco directly. The first modern, self-igniting match was invented in 1805 by Jean Chancel, assistant to Professor
Louis Jacques Thénard of
Paris. The head of the match consisted of a mixture of
potassium chlorate,
sulfur,
gum arabic and
sugar. The match was ignited by dipping its tip in a small
asbestos bottle filled with
sulfuric acid. The head was large and contained
niter,
charcoal and wood dust, and had a phosphorus tip. The handle was large and made of hardwood so as to burn vigorously and last for a while. Some even had glass stems. Both Vesuvians and Prometheans had a bulb of sulfuric acid at the tip which had to be broken to start the reaction. In 1832, William Newton patented the "wax vesta" in England. It consisted of a wax stem that embedded cotton threads and had a tip of phosphorus. Variants known as "candle matches" were made by Savaresse and Merckel in 1836.
Friction matches Chemical matches were unable to make the leap into mass production due to their expense, cumbersome nature, and inherent danger. An alternative method was to produce the ignition through friction produced by rubbing two rough surfaces together. Two early examples were produced in France. In 1810,
Baron Cagniard de la Tour produced the "phosphorus bottle", which used a
sulfur-infused taper to extract partially oxidized
phosphorus from a vial, which then produced a flame when struck against any firm surface. Another was François Derosne's 1816 , which similarly used a sulfur-tipped taper to scrape a tube internally coated with phosphorus. Both proved inconvenient and unsafe. "Congreves" matchbox from the 1830s, misattributed in its source to
John Walker, inventor of the friction match in 1826 or 1827. The first commercially successful friction match was invented by
John Walker, an chemist and pharmacist in
Stockton-on-Tees, England. This may have occurred during experiments in 1826 but his were first recorded in a note on a sale upon credit on 7 April 1827. He changed the name to "friction lights" or "attrition lights" a few months later. stating "I doubt not it will be a benefit to the public, so let them have it." or even record it in his notes, such that it was necessary to later analyze his products to establish that they were wooden sticks 3 inches long by inches wide by inches high (7.6×0.4×0.1cm) and began commercializing a version of Holden's product throughout Britain as the "
Promethean" or "lucifer match" (, "light-bearer"). Its popularityand much lower priceprompted Walker to stop making his own formulation by 1830, or January 1831. Sauria also did not patent his invention, This name became popular in Britain but they were more generally known in the United States as s, which gave its name to
a progressive faction of the
Democratic Party. In 1832, Samuel Jones adapted his regular phosphorus match to also produce "fuzees", slower burning matches for use with
cigars and
pipes. The earliest American patent for the phosphorus friction match was granted in 1836 to Alonzo Dwight Phillips of
Springfield, Massachusetts, while John Hucks Stevens pirated Jones's fuzees as "fusse cigar lights" in 1839. From 1830 to 1890, the composition of matches remained largely unchanged, although some improvements were made. In 1843 William Ashgard replaced the sulfur with beeswax, reducing the pungency of the fumes. This was replaced by
paraffin in 1862 by Charles W. Smith, resulting in what were called "parlor matches". From 1870, the end of the splint was fireproofed by impregnation with fire-retardant chemicals such as alum, sodium silicate, and other salts resulting in what was commonly called a "drunkard's match" that prevented the accidental burning of the user's fingers. A noiseless match was invented in 1836 by the Hungarian
János Irinyi, who was a student of chemistry. An unsuccessful experiment by his professor, Meissner, gave Irinyi the idea to replace potassium chlorate with
lead dioxide in the head of the phosphorus match. Early matches were made from blocks of wood with cuts separating the splints but leaving their bases attached. Later versions were made in the form of thin combs. The splints would be broken away from the comb when required. and there was enough white phosphorus in one pack to kill a person. Deaths and suicides from eating the heads of matches became frequent. The earliest report of phosphorus necrosis was made in 1845 by Lorinser in Vienna, and a New York surgeon published a pamphlet with notes on nine cases. The conditions of working-class women at the
Bryant & May factories led to the
London matchgirls strike of 1888. The strike was focused on the severe health complications of working with
white phosphorus, such as
phossy jaw. Social activist
Annie Besant published an article in her halfpenny weekly paper
The Link on 23 June 1888. A strike fund was set up and some newspapers collected donations from readers. The women and girls also solicited contributions. Members of the
Fabian Society, including
George Bernard Shaw,
Sidney Webb, and
Graham Wallas, were involved in the distribution of the cash collected. The strike and negative publicity led to changes being made to limit the health effects of the inhalation of white phosphorus. Attempts were made to reduce the ill-effects on workers through the introduction of inspections and regulations.
Anton Schrötter von Kristelli discovered in 1850 that heating white phosphorus at 250 °C in an inert atmosphere produced a red allotropic form, which did not fume in contact with air. It was suggested that this would make a suitable substitute in match manufacture although it was slightly more expensive. Two French chemists, Henri Savene and Emile David Cahen, proved in 1898 that the addition of
phosphorus sesquisulfide meant that the substance was not poisonous, that it could be used in a "strike-anywhere" match, and that the match heads were not explosive. British company
Albright and Wilson was the first company to produce phosphorus sesquisulfide matches commercially. The company developed a safe means of making commercial quantities of phosphorus sesquisulfide in 1899 and started selling it to match manufacturers. This required each country to pass laws prohibiting the use of white phosphorus in matches. The United Kingdom passed the '''''' (
8 Edw. 7. c. 42) prohibiting its use in matches after 31 December 1910. The United States did not pass a law, but instead placed a "punitive tax" in 1913 on white phosphorus–based matches, one so high as to render their manufacture financially impractical, and Canada banned them in 1914. India and Japan banned them in 1919; China followed, banning them in 1925. In 1901 Albright and Wilson started making phosphorus sesquisulfide at their
Niagara Falls, New York plant for the US market, but American manufacturers continued to use white phosphorus matches.
Safety matches , Finland In addition to the dangers of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches, its easy combustibility became a major issue. During the 1850s and 1860s, London regularly saw dozens of major fires each year from children playing with strike-anywhere matches or from their careless use. This led to the development of the "safety match", whose major innovation was the use of
red phosphorus on a separate and specially-designed striking surface, rather than placement on the head of the match itself. The idea of creating a specially designed striking surface was developed in 1844 by the Swede
Gustaf Erik Pasch. Pasch patented the use of red phosphorus in the striking surface. He found that this could ignite heads that did not need to contain white phosphorus. Meanwhile,
Arthur Albright developed an industrial process for large-scale manufacture of red phosphorus after Schrötter's discoveries became known. By 1851, his company was producing the substance by heating white phosphorus in a sealed pot at a specific temperature. He exhibited his red phosphorus at the
1851 Great Exhibition in
The Crystal Palace in London.
Johan Edvard Lundström and his younger brother Carl Frans Lundström (1823–1917) had started a large-scale match industry in
Jönköping, Sweden around 1847, but the improved safety match was not introduced until the early 1850s. The Lundström brothers had obtained a sample of red phosphorus matches from Albright at the Great Exhibition, but had misplaced it and therefore they did not try the matches until just before the
1855 Universal Exhibition in
Paris, when they found that the matches were still usable. , in
Mexico City The safety of
true "safety matches" is derived from the separation of the reactive ingredients between a match head on the end of a splint and the special striking surface (in addition to the general safety benefits of replacing the white phosphorus with
red phosphorus). The splint was also soaked in
paraffin rather than sulfur to improve the flame's odor. The idea for separating the chemicals had been introduced in 1859 in the form of two-headed matches known in France as . These were sticks with one end made of potassium chlorate and the other of red phosphorus. They had to be broken and the heads rubbed together. In France, they sold the rights to their safety match
patent to Coigent Père & Fils of
Lyon, but Coigent contested the payment in the French courts, on the basis that the invention was known in
Vienna before the Lundström brothers patented it. The British match manufacturer
Bryant and May visited Jönköping in 1858 to try to obtain a supply of safety matches, but was unsuccessful. In 1862 it established
its own factory and bought the rights for the British safety match patent from the Lundström brothers. ==Modern matches==