Strike the Match, Part 2

we we really covered a lot of ground. We started with an ancient Earth incapable of sustaining fire, and we moved on to humanity's earliest uses of the Pilford flame. From there, we discovered the great leap forward into fire creation technology, namely fire drills and flint and pye rite or flint and steel. And we also talked about fuel manufactured fuel such as shopping wood and create you know, creating more suitable types of fuel for your fire, but

also specialized fuel. And this led to little sticks of wood for moving fire from one place to another and ultimately the origins of the sulfur match, in which a little uh, a little piece of wood is then dipped into sulfur to create a piece of a fuel that lights up very readily, allows you to transfer fire from

one place to another. Right now. One of the things we talked about in the last episode and we needed to make is a very clear distinction, was that the sulfur match that was very invented in ancient China may also have existed in ancient Rome. According to a few references um there uh that this was a chemical match and that was used to quickly catch fire. But it was not a friction match. It was not a match that you would be able to light by striking it

across the surface. Right. If you were to travel back in time, uh, you know into two uh to to China at the time, request to match and an attempt to strike it, you would just be a match destroyer. And people would we wondered, what you're trying to do? Why are you rubbing? Uh? This the special what was the term for it? Um the light bringing slaves? Yeah? Why are you taking our light bringing slaves and just

destroying them against a brick wall? Uh? Yeah. But they would still be quite useful even though they could only be ignited by existing heat or flame, because they'd be useful for say, transferring fire from one place to another. You want to take fire, say out of a pot and light a candle or something. Right, Yeah, and one of the I think the big take comes. Certainly, go back and listen to that episode of view you haven't, but I think one of the big take comes, uh.

And one of the biggest discoveries for me was just thinking about fire as a process, as a thing that happens, and then all these fire technologies are ways of managing uh, that process to transform an event into like a tangible substance. You know. A lot of times that means sort of putting the fire in a kind of suspended animation, like reducing the fire as much as possible without actually extinguishing

it to make it manageable. And this was also something we talked about as an ancient technology that existed probably even before humans had the ability to make their own fires. Uh, they had various methods they'd come up with to carry

fire around without it going out. So, for example, we talked about the possessions of Otsy the Iceman, who was found in the Italian Alps in ninety one, this neolithic mummy who was frozen there in the glacier, and one of the things he had on him was a little container made out of birch bark, that appeared to be for carrying coals around, So you could take a coal out of one fire, put it in this little container rapid in leaves, and you'd have a coal that would

continue to burn for hours in case you need to make camp really quickly. You know, one thing I kept thinking about when we were talking about it in the last episode is Disney Christmas Carol, in which Cratchett played by Mickey Mouse, brings home a hot coal from Ebenezer scroogees uh stove to to light his own stove at home. Oh,

I don't know if I even remember this. I believe if that is the case, unless I'm misremembering, there is any um if it wasn't that it's some other version of a Christmas Carol that I've seen and it wasn't doubting that I'm saying, I'm not aware. It's also possible that it wasn't Cratchett bringing home the code, but perhaps Scrooge bringing home a hot coal from his office place to ignite some small fire at his home. He is

all about efficiency. Yeah, but but you know, it makes a lot more sense now that one really gets down and considers the pain of having to start a fire. You know, it makes sense to bring that hot coal home if you have the ability to transfer transfer it. Now, in this episode we are going to be getting into the origins of the actual friction match. But I started to wonder. Okay, so we know based on the last episode that there were several things that were called a

match before the friction match existed. So where does this term match come from? Yeah, we mentioned Mandarin terminology, we mentioned a little Latin. But as James Whisney I points out in his match is the Manufacturer of Fire from two thousand five published in the Indian Journal of Chemical Technology, the word match seems to come from the French uh meche I think, and this would be a wick as in a lamp, and it likely refers back to the

Latin uh um might mix us. I believe it is a mix of mixa, which would be the wick of a lamp. But the key technology that led to the naming of the match dicks see, it seems was what is known as the slow match. Now, this is something that's probably gonna be confusing yet again because this has some things in common with matches of today. In the

matches we've been talking about other things very not in common. Right, The slow match was essentially a slow burning cord or twine uh fuse that early musketeers and soldiers used to

ignite early firearms and cannons. To put it in pirate terms for everybody, because this may ring a bell legendary pirate to Edward Blackbeard Teach who lives sixteen eight through seventeen eighteen, is said to have twisted slow matches under his hat, like in his hair um, and then they'd be lit on both sides to frighten his enemies slash victims. So when you hear the phrase slow match, you need to think fuse. It is it is like a rope like object that has been made to burn slowly. Yeah,

And but that's the other thing. When you think fuse, don't think a firecracker fuse like you you have probably some experience with today, or like a cartoon fuse, you know, where it's just zipping around really quickly and there's just a fast um transfer of that spark to the explosive. No, this would be a slow, smoldering string twine cord type object. Yeah.

So yeah, generally you're talking about some rope or cord soaked in potassium nitrate, which is a key constituent of gunpowder, and then it would be dried, you'd light it, you'd you'd blow out the flame, but then a red ember would continue to burn and work its way down the cord. So really, if you if you think of a fuse like a firecracker refuse with all the sparking, and you think about it going really slowly, that's essentially what's happening.

Very similar thing actually to the carrying of the coal in the in the birch bark container. It's something to keep a low fire smoldering for a long period of time that can be used to reignite something else quickly. Yeah, basically getting that fire into a state of suspended animation where it's there when you need it. But it's also you're not just like carrying around a big flaming torch, especially if you're having to deal with gunpowder. Though, as

we'll discuss in a minute, it didn't come without dangers. Yes, So another place some of you might have seen this is you would you would typically find the slow match physically attached to a weapon such as a musket or clipped to the matchlock mechanism of a matchlock weapon. Yes.

For a really great recent media example, if you've seen the horror movie The Witch, directed by Robert Egger's, Uh, there is a scene in the movie where actually, throughout the movie, um, the characters carry around a musket and it is a matchlock musket. There's a scene where the father played by Ralph Ineson is trying to hunt He's trying to shoot a rabbit. Uh, And you can see it has this long tail of cord sticking out of it.

Sometimes they carry it with the cords sort of wrapped around what looks like a cleat of some kind on the stock. And in the scene where he tries to hunt a rabbit, you can watch him going through these kind of tedious, dangerous, laborious steps of like pouring out the powder, packing it, getting the slow match lit and then blowing on it to make it smolder, and then

clipping it into the hook. Like it looks like it would be a very difficult weapon to use, and in one sense it is like, but you might wonder, watching all of this laborious stuff, why was the matchlock musket actually an invention? What would this be an improvement over? Uh? So I was reading about this, and apparently previously gunpowder based weapons would usually have to be lit by hand.

So try to imagine that, like in the moment, the gunner would have to carefully set fire to the priming powder, which was in a small receptacle called the flash pan, and they would have to do that by hand, and then of course the ignition of the powder and the flash pan would in turn set off the main charge inside the barrel and then propel the ball out towards the target. But just imagine trying to do this aim a weapon at a target while you're trying to carefully

light the flash pan by hand. I mean, it's it seems borderline impossible. And generally weapons before this period were not handheld. You'd be talking about cannons, you know, mounted artillery and stuff, but the musket was something that you wanted to be able to hold in your hands and aim. And the match lock provided a huge advantage here by freeing the musket carrier's hands to hold and aim the weapon.

So here, after you pack the weapon, so you you put the powder for the main charge down the barrel, you'd pack the ball in you you'd smash it down with the stick and then what you would do is s the end of the slow match this fuse like cord. You'd set the end of that burning, you'd blow on it, get it smoldering, and then you'd clip the burning end of the slow match into a little metal arm called a serpentine, and then you put the powder in the flash pan. And after you've done all that, you could

aim the weapon and pull the trigger. And what would happen when you pull the trigger is that the metal serpentine would automatically lower the smoldering slow match down into the flash pan to ignite the charge. And this was a big improvement over the hand lighting of the powder. But as you can probably tell from the description, it's

still going to be very slow firing, laborious. It could still be dangerous because you'd probably be like trying to manage a burning slow match as you're like pouring powder into various parts of the gun. Uh So there are several drawbacks of course to the matchlock must get Number one, you would have some kind of giveaways to the enemy, right Like, so you're trying to line up to shoot at night, and you'd be having to light these fires and have the slow match burning. You would be able

to smell it. Uh, and then of course there's the danger of the smoldering thing next to all this powder you're juggling around. This makes me wonder, you know, all these various first person shooter video games, they often devote a great deal of detail to how guns are loaded and reloaded and and then brought back into position for firing. But it happens really fast. I wonder if if there is a game out there that gives even like a

halfway accurate depiction of the use of a matchlock weapon. Yeah, like a fifteenth century first person shooter where it takes, you know, at least thirty seconds to load every shot. Yeah, that would be that'd be an interesting call of duty game right there. Well, I think maybe it actually could be that kind of the stakes, and I think it would be It would be interesting. Yeah. I mean, there's at least one or two archaic weapons in the Fallout games,

but you know, it's all on auto reload. You just push. Reloading just takes a while. It would be interesting if there was a game where you you actually had to, uh, you know, do this maneuver with one joystick and another with the other joystick and whereas it was so that actually reloading this weapon required uh more of a you know, a cognitive responsibility on the part of the player, and if you screw up while you're reloading, it literally explodes

in your face and kills you. And then but so there's a funny thing here where the progression of the firing mechanism in in gun technology actually goes kind of opposite of what we've been talking about in the progress of firelighting and matches, because you go in history from the matchlock musket to the flint lock musket, and the flint lock was said to be an improvement because you

didn't have to have a fire lit there. Instead, you just have the powder in your flash pan and it would be ignited by the striking of the flint that happens when you release the hammer. Interesting. Now, of course, that has its own problems. With the flint lock, I think there was a greater chance of the weapon misfiring, right, maybe you don't get a good spark or something. But anyway, I thought that was interesting content x for the idea

of the match. You know, when you think about the way it works with the weapon, is it's there to be a fire that's ready whenever you need it. Yeah, and this is really, I mean, this is key to so many technologies, right, I mean again coming back to even the the hot water heater in in in the household. You know, it's how do you make sure the fire is there when you need it, but in a safe way, in a way that is not going to endanger everybody.

So as far as matches and the match lock and the slow match, basically, Whisneak writes that the match was just, you know, basically with with more of a modern match. It's just a way of having a fire ready for you when you need it. And so it's you know, quite reasonable transfer of names here to talk about the

wooden match with the legacy of the slow match. Yeah, I think that's great because ultimately, what we're gonna get to with the friction matches that you don't need to have a fire burning at all, and yet it's still ready the moment you need it, right, and it's it's certainly gonna be a little bit more like the the

the flint lock scenario that we're just talking about. So, uh, we discussed in the last episode how humans have spent a lot of time poking around in the fire and using fire among other means to understand the nature of various substances. And that's eventually essentially how we got to the notion of using sulfur or potassium nitrate. Even right there are these substances, we figured out how to in

some cases you know, refine them. And then what happens when we had fire to them, Well, they spark or they explode or they they they catch fire more readily than other substances, and that they can ultimately, like sulfur can if coding the end of a little stick can make that stick a better fuel to use for transferring flame from one point to another. Now, the flame bringing power of sulfur as we know goes back way into the ancient world that was known about by you know,

the ancient Chinese, by the ancient Romans. But there are going to be new chemicals coming online that may serve this job even better. Yes, humans began to under uncover new substances such as is even new elements such as phosphorus, which in the seventeenth century became the first new element

not known since ancient times. And some arguments have been made for other chemists othern you know, discoveries haven't been having taken place earlier or around the same time, but credit is typically given to the German alchemist hinting Brand in sixteen sixty nine. Now, a quick note on alchemy, which is a rich topic unto itself, but we're largely dealing with a proto scientific mixture of chemical research and occult magic, the continuation of mystery traditions, etcetera. I love

the period of alchemy. It's so culturally and historically interesting, especially when you're thinking about the history of science, because it is a time when in some cases, real knowledge is advancing right alongside what people believed were equivalent advances in knowledge about like demonology and how to you know, how to do spells, at the same time that people really are learning things about, say, uh, chemistry and the curing of certain diseases. Yeah. Like, for instance, in Bronze case,

he was seeking the legendary Philosopher's Stone. Now, this is a substance of that was said to have miraculous powers. It was capable of transforming metals into u into other metals. You know, this is that lead into gold, uh scenario, but it could also provide immortality. That's why it factors into a Harry Potter novel, for instance. But Broun sought it in urine, in urine, distilling it down to a white material that glowed in the dark. And this was phosphorus.

Mirabulous or miraculous bearer of light. Who would have known that PP was so illuminating? Indeed, it was all right, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we will return to the mysteries of the urine, and we will talk about phosphorus. Alright, we're back. So as one might expect, given its alchemical origins, UH, phosphorus was a secret. At first, it was traded and it was sold,

but it eventually it became known beyond these chambers of secret. Uh. Its most impressive attribute is that it instantly combusts in air, making it a nasty element in many ways. And and we see we see this today with the use of a white phosphorus munitions, which popped up in the twentieth century, and then they are still used today by some militaries, despite the fact that this and other incendiary weapons have

been banned by multiple international laws. UM white phosphorus munitions can produce additional like terrible burns via burning particles as well as harmful vapors. Yeah, I was reading an article about this in Reuters from two thousand nine because I tried to sort this out before. It's sort of complicated and confusing because phosphorus based incendiaries have both legal and illegal uses in war these days. Um, and that can

lead to, you know, arguments about specific uses. So white phosphorus today, as it would be used as a munition, is this colorless or sometimes kind of yellow waxy substance I've read this. Router's article mentioned that it sometimes smells like garlic. I did not know that, but that it ignites in the air very easily at temperatures of something like thirty degrees celsius or about eighty six degrees fahrenheit, and it can be very hard to put out once

it's ignited. Um. But apparently common uses of white phosphorus, in addition to you know, just being a direct incendiary weapon, are in like tracer ammunition, so to help you know see where where the line of fire is going. Right, If anyone's ever watched any of those old like World War two, World War two cockpit footage of of of of machine gun fire. You know, you're seeing the tracers the lights that mark which direction of the bullets are going.

Another common use for it apparently is in marking targets, so, which would mean, you know, so you need some kind of target flare, so you're trying to aim artillery or something like that, you can mark the target on the ground that you're trying to hit with white phosphorus apparently. Uh. And then finally to create smoke screens, which would be

useful in hiding the maneuver of friendly troops. Yeah. So basically comes down to how are you using it or using it to illuminate or using it to obscure, or are you using it in a way that is either intentionally or or or nearly intentionally uh, incendiary against human beings or or human infrastructure, using it to burn people in buildings. Right, that does seem to be the main difference.

So the uses I mentioned have been more generally permitted, but it is against international law to use white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon, especially against civilians or in areas where civilians are clustered. And this us I think leads to disputes because they're like these controversial uses where the forces who used it said well, we were using it for one of these permitted reasons, and then their critics say, no, you were using it as an incendiary weapon. Yeah. Yeah,

I remember. I grew up in a house so where we know, we talked a lot about military technology, and and my my dad always he always stressed the just horrible nous of incendiary weapons, such as the flamethrower, which on a video game can look pretty cool until you think about what a flamethrower actually is and what a

horrible weapon it is. Uh. And likewise, phosphorus, I remember him telling me that, like you've if you would have, if you would have particles of phosphorus, like in your skin, they would have to immerse your your like your arm in water then to remove it. Uh, thus you know, degating the flare ability of it when it's exposed to oxygen or free atmospheric oxygen. Yeah, that that goes everything I've read about phosphorus as a direct weapon is just

a toe total nightmare. But all this would come later. We're fast forwarding a little bit with the phosphorus weapons, because at first phosphorus, you know, when it first crept out of the alchemist workshop, it was one of these substances that clearly had a lot of potential and you didn't have to be a war pig to see it, because no, no, surely this is an element that would enable one to produce instant fire, because that's what it does. It can busts in the air itself. Yeah, what a

like eighty something degrease fahrenheit. I mean that that's that's unusual. Yeah, like even in uh you know, I mean, because we're talking about even like in a cold environment with minimal friction, you would be able to reach that point. However, it would take a good a hundred and fifty years after its discovery for us to see really the beginnings of of actual technology that utilized it. And this would be

um the pyro phosphorus fire carrier that came around. This Whisney I explains, was quote a sealed glass or ampool containing a finely divided pyro four powder free of phosphorus, which ignited spontaneously when the tube was broken and the contents scattered. And he adds that pyrophoric powers are chemicals in finely powdered and reactive state which catch fire on

exposure to air. So yeah, so you'd have a sealed capsule that you would rupture in order to either combine things or just expose something to the air and instantly create a flame. Which I don't know that that version of the of the instant strike alite sounds a little scarier than the normal match. Yeah. I was reaching about a few who uh, really terrifying versions of this technology that rolled out early on. So one was Wilhelm Homberg created a mixture that could be sprinkled under dry cotton,

which would cause it to catch fire. Okay. Then Robert Hare who eight had a version that again entailed a sealed glass tube. But another, I think the scariest one is known as Rosling's pyrophorus. And I couldn't find any information on who Rosling is in this scenario, like what their first name was, etcetera. But the description I ran across is that it was the powder was packed on top of tobacco in a pipe and you ignited it by sucking air through it. I think rose Ling was

the uncle of molok. Yeah. Now, another one that comes up is the phosphoric taper or the ethereal match, and this was a sealed glass tube with wax paper and phosphorus inside it, you'd break the tube, according to Whisney at quote with the aid of the teeth or otherwise, I've ready and withdrawal the phosphorus impregnated taper into the air. Um. These were indeed not only were these dangerous, but they

were also pricey. So there so ultimately you have a technology there's just not practical for everyday use for for for two huge reasons. It costs too much and you might blow your face off. Yeah. I think I've read about at least a couple of matches along these lines that were like kind of glass container that you were the most people would rupture with their teeth and that would start the fire. Yeah. Yeah, that even without things blowing up, you're breaking the glass cylinder with your teeth,

which just that alone gives me the all over us. Now. There were some other advancements made in fire creation technology that are worth at least touching on. One came from Johann Wolfgang Doberiner, who lives seventeen through eighteen forty nine UM, and he was a German chemist who in eighteen three created what some dubbed the first lighter, the Doberinos lamp, which It's also known as a like a hydrogen lighter. Hydrogen produced from Z passes through a jet with sulfuric

acid over spongy platinum on a platinum wire. The gas ignights, producing a flame. So the sponge here catalyzes a reaction with oxygen heats the catalyst, igniting the hydrogen. Uh. This, I've seen pictures of it. It It does. It looks kind of like a I mean, it looks like a lamp. If you were just solid setting on a shelf in an antique story, might think it looks kind of neat, but it might not realize like what it is. But these apparently had a good hundred year run as being

a good way of producing flame. Yeah. If I were just looking at this, I would not guess it was something that produced flame. I would guess that it was a lamp of some kind, something that carried for Yeah, it just at first glance, it just looks like a lamp. Another fire technology innovation at the time worth mentioning is the pneumatic tinder box, also known as a light syringe

or a fire piston. Now, it depended on the rapid stroke of a piston to generate heat to ignite tinder and interestling enough, this is one of these inventions that that emerged in Europe around that time, but essentially was a much older Southeast Asian invention, which is, you know, to say that the technique certainly shows up their first hundreds of years earlier, but it's unclear if into what extent this directly influenced European fire pistons or it's just

you know, much later, Uh, Europeans got around to it through other technological roundabouts. You know. One thing I'm really picking up on from these past couple of episodes is the general impression that fire creation technology gets around fast. Yeah. I mean it basically comes down to the fact that any human culture is going to need it, like it is such an important part of of of the human experience,

Like you need to be able to create fire. And so if it's a new kind of match like that that's going to spread, if it's a new element, You're only gonna be able to keep that a secret for so long because the potential there is just too high. Alright, So we've talked about chemicals, elements, friction. I think you can see where this is going. Maybe we need to take a break and then we come back, we can talk about the invention of the friction match. All all right,

we're back, We're finally here. We were reaching the point where something more or less like the modern match is possible. Right, So the invention of the friction match, the match that you like by striking it across the surface, is often credited to a single individual, a British chemist named John Walker, who lived in the nineteenth century in a town called Stockton on Tees, which is in County Durham up in northern England. Now I've come across a few sort of

conflicting claims of primacy, though most sources site Walker. But for example, there is a nineteen twenty two Dictionary of Applied Chemistry written by the prolific British chemists Sir Thomas Edward Thorpe, and it claims quote in eighteen sixteen, friction matches tipped with a composition containing phosphorus are stated to have been manufactured in Paris by a friend. Sois de Rone, who by Gentle and others, is regarded as the first

maker of the phosphorus friction match. But I'm sure exactly what to do with claims like this, because pretty much all modern sources I can find give the credit to Walker. Uh, the Walker wouldn't create his invention until later in the eighteen twenties, So this proceeds Walker by at least ten years. And Thorpe himself does claim that Walker invented the first

quote practical and useful matches ignitable by friction. Uh, So I guess he's saying that maybe that, according to Thorpe, at least somebody else in France created a friction match earlier, but it was not practical and useful enough to count. And that kind of raises a general question, like when we give somebody credit for an invention, how impractical does a version of an invention need to be before it

doesn't count at all? Right? Right? Yeah, And we we discussed this a little bit, and we discussed this time and time again on the show. Really, but it came up when we were discussing cocktails with with Jeff Beach von Berry, Like, if it's one thing to be able to make the cocktail in your home kitchen, another to be able to serve it. It's one thing to be able to create something like a match in your workshop, but to produce it on scale to be able to

actually uh get it out. There is a dependable way of sparking a flame. Yeah, and Thorpe doesn't really go into more details. So I don't know what exactly was so impracticable about Francois Drone's friction match, but it sounds like it it didn't work very well, or at least according to Thorpe's diagnosis here. Um so, so here we're left with John Walker. He's the one who almost always

gets the credit. He was born in seventy one. I was reading a blog post about him by Andrew Haynes for The Pharmaceutical Journal, and it described Walker's father as a grocer, a draper, and a druggist, just a lot of jobs. John was the third son in the family and originally he was on the road to become a surgeon, which was of course a very exciting road to occupy at this time and place. You know, think late eighteenth century in northern England. He's probably pretty close to the

medical colleges of Scotland. Uh see our episodes about the Casket from last October if you want more wonderful medical mischief of that time and place. But so he served an apprenticeship with the town's head surgeon, and he was eventually appointed an assistant surgeon in the town. But John Walker had a bit of a problem with this career path.

He was reportedly quite squeamish and he could not stomach the sight of blood and all those gaping holes in human bodies, and ultimately this led him to quit his career path and say, I just can't do surgery. Wow, that's understandable. That would have been a tough hurdle to get over, especially at that time. Yeah, So he reversed course. He left surgery behind and he went back to study

pharmacy in Durham and in York. And after he completed his education in pharmacy, he moved back home and in eighteen nineteen he opened his own whatever you would want to call it for this period, an apothecary, a pharmacy shop, uh, that kind of business in Stockton on Tees, his hometown. So friction matches are another one of these inventions that is at least alleged to have been partially discovered by accident.

So how did this work? Well, John Walker already had an interest in fire production and in practical chemistry and sometime in the eighteen twenties, he started creating and selling a mixture of potassium chlorate and antimony sulfide bound together with gum arabic and he called this flammable product percussion powder. So he's already making a flammable mixture the on a

regular basis and selling it in his Druggist shop. But one day in eighteen six, John Walker was preparing a mixture of the percussion powder, and while mixing the chemicals together, he used a little wooden stick to stir them, which of course became coated at one end in this lighting fluid. And the story goes that he happened to scrape this stick across the rough stone of his hearth, and then

the chemical coded part burst into flames. Now, this is the kind of accidental discovery that could if situations were just right or just wrong enough, perhaps it could well be the last discovery you make. It could be a really um, a really final Eureka movement. Uh yeah, you say, if it was too close to the rest of his powder, he had a big mass of it there or something.

But a Walker immediately knew that he had an important new product on hand, one that could easily produce fire from no original fire with little effort, and it was very portable to boot. So on April seven, seven we know from his diaries that was the day he began selling these early strike matches in his pharmacy under the name friction Lights. Now, the ones he sold were made by hand out of first cardboard and later little wooden splints.

I read that he apparently hired people from the town to just sit around cutting up tiny little wooden splints for him, and then he would coat the ends of them in potassium chloride antimony sulfide bound together with gum arabic. And he sold the friction lights with a piece of glass paper or sand paper, and the instructions were to fold the sand paper over the head of the match and then pull the stick out sharply. Now the sand paper in this case did not have any special chemical

properties of its own. It was just regular sandpaper. It was just there to be a very rough surface to provide the heat from the friction when striking, because there's not necessarily going to be a brick on hand to strike it off right, and the friction would ignite the dried paste and then you would have your flame. But Walker did not acquire a patent on his process, and this turned out the worse for him. Within just a few years, other producers and you know, almost immediately just

swooped in began selling copycats. Some of the best known friction like copycats were produced by A Samuel Jones of London, and these friction matches were known at the time as Lucifers. Apparently they had more not just the antimony sulfide, but they had a more direct sulfur content. They might have just been sulfur, and the name Lucifer has something to

do with that. The fact that they were sulfur dipped is from the sulfur aus smell that would be released when you ignited it, so it would it would smell like the fires of hell when you're like one of these matches, the Brimstone Tenders uh. And then there were other copycats also who were soon on the market. Thorpe mentioned sulfur dipped competitors sold in London by Jones competitors Geff Watts uh and by Richard Bell and Company, which

sold theirs as improved Lucifer's. Improved Lucifer's that sounds like a Redemption arc for the for the Fallen Angel. Yeah uh, And apparently John Walker himself was not a fan of the name Lucifer's Matches. He didn't like it. I don't know if that was if that was him being precious about his invention, or if he was a pious man or what interesting, but for some reason he wasn't into that it. Also, it is kind of a clunky name, right. It's one thing to say, hey, do you have a light?

Do you have a match? Excuse me? So, do you have any Lucifers on your person? I mean, that's why go with three syllables when you when all you need is one. Just call them Devil's devil would work? Or you again, just a light? A match like the Summit rolls off the tongue a lot easier. Hast thou a prince of darkness in my pocket? Do you have a spare belzebub to spare with me? A mephistuff LEAs perhaps? Yeah?

I mean, once you get to do a bunch of clunky devil names, easier just to go back to the light. So I've got a really funny but wait, well that does remind me that, of course, the other part of the name is Lucifer means bringer of light, of course it does. Yeah. So it is a great name. It's a double yeah. It is also a little clunkey. Yeah. Uh So there's a great addendum to this story just

happened to come across. So in the English town of Stockton on Tees, this town in northern England that John Walker is from where the friction match was invented, there is a statue to honor John Walker. It was erected in nineteen seventy seven, which would have been the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first year that he sold the matches. Remember that was eighty seven. But there's a twist I was reading about in uh in the

Times of London. Apparently in nineteen ninety the Borough Council of Stockton on Tees found out that the town statue of John Walker was based on the likeness of the wrong John Walker. It had been made from an etching of a London actor named John Walker, who never invented anything, as far as we know, never even visited Stockton on Tees. And after they found this out, they kept it a secret until just a few years ago when they were a number. There were some newspaper articles that came out

about it. It would be like, if you know, centuries from now, uh, someone decided to to to create a statue to honor the physicist Brian Cox, and but instead of the dashing scientist, they found h an image of the you know, perhaps less dashing but certainly charismatic act Brian Dare you how I mean? Dare you? Skill of the actor Brian cots Okay when his younger years, I imagine he was he was more dashing, but generally he

is uh, I would say he is. He has more of a severe look to modern audiences, people who know him from like Man Hunter On. In fact, that may be the earliest film I can remember seeing with with with him in it. I really don't have any familiarity with the younger Brian Cox. He's got a small role in the early seventies film Nicholas and Alexandra about the last family of the Romanovs, in which he plays Trotsky.

Is he recognizable. I don't know. It's been a long time since I saw the movie, but but he's in there all right. I just mainly associating with like a fearsome bear of a man um, you know, with a very very haggard look and voice, um, very different from the physicist. So did they back to this the statue though of John Walker? Did they fix it? Did they? Haven't read anything about fixing. I don't know. I mean, when you're dealing I do not know the resolution of

this story. I just know it was the wrong guy. I mean, I guess it's when you're dealing with historical figures of of this caliber. I mean, what does it matter, right? I mean, at least we're remembering their name and their accomplishments, even if we essentially have an actor playing them in the statue. What if that statue of RoboCop in Detroit was based on the wrong RoboCop. Oh, No, that would be blasphemous. Yeah, like like the RoboCop three RoboCop was it? Wait?

Was it a different actor in RoboCop three? I'm sure it was, yeah, Or the RoboCop the TV show RoboCop. It just would not be the same. Or the reboot RoboCop. Oh, that would be the worst. That reboot that was not good. I haven't seen it. Well, Actually it was one of those movies I had complex thoughts about it. It felt like a movie that might have been a better movie in an earlier draft of the script, but the script had been rewritten to make it worse. That that was

my intuition. Okay, that sounds about right. Um, back to two matches. Your talking about the use of the sand paper and folding it over. This brings back so many memories of of using matches as as a kid um and sort of getting comfortable with them. Because a match, especially if you're told to be careful with matches enough, it can be intimidating to strike one um, especially if you're using the little cardboard matches that are in the

little cardboard folding apparatus. Uh you know those. You sometimes have to get your fingernails rather close, perhaps uncomfortably close to the tip of the match to do the strike, and then you have to sort of backtrack really quickly. Uh and it might get a little warm on the tips of your fingers and uh and and sometimes you're tempted to do the fold over method, which can result in just destroying a match because you might be pinching

it to pull the head off. You'll pull the head off, or it's just there's there's kind of like a and then it's gone funny enough, I know the exact minute mechanical complaint you're talking about. Uh. And then likewise, and sometimes you'd have like the big box of matches, you know, like a proper fireplace box of matches, and you would use it so much that the strike plate would be the sand paper area would be worn down where you

couldn't even effectively strike anything anymore. Um. And and then there were people would have various tricks too, right, I mean you'd see people who could do the finger the fingernail um striking of the match, or use it a belt buckle or a brick or something. I never had any luck with any extracurricular striking records. That's like pony

Boy and Dally kind of stuff. Plus I'm thinking, like your fingernail, that always seemed a little dangerous, Like couldn't you risk getting a little um like match head up underneath your fingernail? That just doesn't sound pleasant. Real Greece is too tough to care about that probably, So still

it beats biting through a glass cylinder right a one degree? Alright, So I think we're gonna have to call this episode there, but we're gonna be back for one more part of our exploration of matches next time, where we will explore more of the role of phosphorus and match manufacturing and the safety match. All right. In the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes of Invention, you can find us anywhere you get your podcasts. If you go to invention pod dot com, that'll shoot you over to

the I heart page for the show. Wherever you get the show. All we ask is subscribe, rate review. These are all things you can do to help out the show. Also, just tell a friend spread the word like like a fire, spread from one match head to another. As a child plays through an entire box of matches in their backyard without their parents knowledge. I know we keep referencing this. By the way, if small children are listening, don't play with matches kids. I know it is fun, but you know,

yes we were. We were reminiscing on playing with matches, but even at the time it felt very dangerous and I guess that's the thrill of it, right, But yes, don't play with matches. Um, they they fire, they catch fire. They can catch fire. With fire comes great responsibility. All right, huge, thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode, UH, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hi, you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio is the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.