Striking Ideas: 200 Years of the Matchstick
The history of the match is a history of small improvements – and a lesson in what it takes for an invention to catch on
Making fire before 1826 took patience. Flint, steel, and tinder all had to be dry, the spark had to be just right, and the ember was then carried to the candle or the stove on a wood shaving or a spill of folded paper. So people made fire as rarely as possible and preferred not to let it burn out.
Then, in 1826, the English pharmacist John Walker discovered, more or less by accident, that a small stick coated with the right chemicals catches fire when you draw it across a rough surface. From 1827 he sold his invention as “friction lights.” He never applied for a patent, though, and is said to have remarked: “I doubt not it will be a benefit to the public, so let them have it.”
That left anyone free to copy and improve his product – among them the chemist Samuel Jones, whose matches, sold as “Lucifers,” soon dominated the market. Walker gave up production as early as 1830. Credit for the invention was only granted to him after his death.
Vienna becomes a city of matches
Early matches were unreliable and had a habit of igniting on their own. A remedy came from the Hungarian student János Irinyi, who developed a new, less explosive striking compound at the Vienna Polytechnic in 1836. He handed his invention over for a modest sum to the Viennese manufacturer Stefan Rómer, who ran the first match factory in the Habsburg monarchy and secured a privilege for the process – the forerunner of today's patent.
However, even these matches were far from safe. Their heads contained highly toxic white phosphorus, and the production process caused serious illness in factory workers. The Berne Convention of 1906 banned the use of white phosphorus in match production.
A patent alone is not a business
The solution had in fact been found much earlier, in 1844: the Swedish chemist Gustaf Erik Pasch replaced white phosphorus with the harmless red variety and moved it off the match head and onto a striking surface on the box. Thus, the safety match as we know it today was born.
In commercial terms, though, Pasch’s invention went nowhere. Red phosphorus was expensive to produce, and the striking surfaces quickly wore out. It took the German chemist Rudolf Christian Böttger to make the safety match ready for series production, and the Swedish manufacturers, the Lundström brothers, began mass production in 1855. Sweden is still the largest match producer in Europe today – and, after India, the second largest in the world.
The spark from Carinthia
The next chapter in the long history of fire-making was written by another Austrian. In the early twentieth century, Carl Auer von Welsbach was researching the rare earth metals when he discovered that an alloy of cerium and iron ignites in air when you scrape shavings from it. In 1903 he filed for patents on the alloy in a whole range of countries – his lawyer made sure the rights were registered worldwide right away.
Production started that same year at the Treibacher Chemische Werke in Carinthia, and from 1907 Auer sold the matching lighters to go with it. Every flint wheel lighter still works on this principle. And flints made of what is known as Auer metal are still produced in Treibach today.
Got a light?
Anyone who needs a light today simply reaches into their pocket. Behind that convenience lie 200 years of tinkering – and a great many small improvements, each of which somebody had to think up first. Let that inspire you the next time you pick up a lighter or a box of matches. All the more so if you are working on an idea of your own.
