Who invented matchstick?
The first MATCH
The first MATCH (friction) was invented in 1826 by John Walker, a chemist of 59 High Street, Stockton-On-Tees, Co. Durham. The discovery was accidental, as Walker’s original intention was to produce a readily combustible material for fowling pieces. His first match was a stick which he had been using to stir a mixture of potash and antimony; it burst into flame when he scraped it against the stone floor to remove the blob on the end.
The earliest-recorded purchaser of a Box of Matches was a Mr. Nixon, a Stockton solicitor, and the transaction is entered in Walker’s day book for 7 April 1827. The price was 1 s for 100 matches were originally made of cardboard, like modern book-matches, but he soon adopted flat wooden splints, which were cut by hand by the inmates of the Stockton almshouses. He attempted to tap another source of cheap labour by employing boys from the local grammar school, paying them 6 d for 100, but the arrangement was terminated after one enterprising youth had tried his hand at mass production by using a jack-plane to cut the splints. Although this brought a sharp rise in productivity, the matches were curved and would not lie flat in the box, with the result that Walker lost his temper and the boys lost their job.
By this time, he had abandoned the tube in favour of a pasteboard box supplied to him by local bookbinder John Ellis at 1 1/2 each. A strip of sandpaper was enclosed inside the box. Most of Walker’s sales were to local people, but the fame of his matches spread far wider, and soon after he began production other chemists started to manufacture friction matches on their own account.
SAFETY MATCH was invented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom of Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1855 and manufactured by the Jonkopings Tandstricksfabrik.
