Everyday Aesthetics 4 The Match
The match used to be an essential means of lighting a fire, cooker, smoking articles, candles and other items.
Without a match a flintlock or other ignition tool was required. A utensil for lighting campimg stoves is still often preferred to the match which can of course become damp in wet weather.
Where did the match come from? Once again, possibly China. A note in the text Cho Keng Lu, written in 1366, describes a sulfur match, small sticks of pinewood impregnated with sulfur, used in China by “impoverished court ladies” in AD 577 during the conquest of Northern Qi. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907–960), a book called the Records of the Unworldly and the Strange written by Chinese author Tao Gu in about 950 stated:
If there occurs an emergency at night it may take some time to make a light to light a lamp. But an ingenious man devised the system of impregnating little sticks of pinewood with sulfur and storing them ready for use. At the slightest touch of fire, they burst into flame. One gets a little flame like an ear of corn. This marvellous thing was formerly called a “light-bringing slave”, but afterward when it became an article of commerce its name was changed to ‘fire inch-stick’.
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. This kind of match was quite expensive, however, and its use was also relatively dangerous, so Chancel’s matches never really became widely adopted or in commonplace use.
The first successful friction match was invented in 1826 by John Walker, an English chemist and druggist from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham. He developed a keen interest in trying to find a means of obtaining fire easily.
In London, similar matches meant for lighting cigars were introduced in 1849 by Heurtner who had a shop called the Lighthouse in the Strand. One version that he sold was called “Euperion” (sometimes “Empyrion”) which was popular for kitchen use and nicknamed as “Hugh Perry”, while another meant for outdoor use was called a “Vesuvian” or “flamer”. 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. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match)
Everyday Aesthetics 4 The Match
Match Girls Strike
In 1897, there were 4,152 people working in 25 match-making factories in Britain, 2,658 of whom were adults, 1,492 were aged between 14 and 18, and 2 under the age of 14. Of the factories that produced matches, 23 of them used white phosphorus. They employed 3,134 people; 245 men and 1,276 women were involved in processes that included phosphorus, with the remainder employed in non-phosphorus roles.
An occupational disease that affected those who worked with white phosphorus was phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, also known as phossy jaw; the condition is not associated with red phosphorus. Phossy jaw developed by inhalation of phosphorus vapour—particularly when the ingredient was heated—which caused osteonecrosis of the jaw bone. This manifested itself in, initially, toothaches and flu-like symptoms, then tooth loss, abscesses, swelling of the gums, the formation of fistula and necrosis of the jaw.[14] Mortality was reported in around 20 percent of cases.
The working conditions in the match factory had caused great discontent: up to fourteen-hour workdays, poor pay (made far worse in 1888 by a poor harvest which caused hours to be drastically reduced ), unjust fines, having no clean area to eat, and the severe health complications of working with allotropes of white phosphorus, which caused phosphorus necrosis also known as phosphorimus chronicus or phossy jaw. This discontent grew into open outrage with the dismissal of one of the workers on or about 2 July 1888.
Social activist Annie Besant became involved in the situation with her friend Herbert Burrows and published an article in her halfpenny weekly paper The Link on 23 June 1888. This had angered the Bryant & May management who tried to get their workforce to sign a paper contradicting it, which they refused to do. This led to the dismissal of a worker (on some other pretext), which set off the strike, with approximately 1,400 women and girls refusing to work by the end of the first day. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchgirls%27_strike)
Everyday Aesthetics 4 The Match