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British pharmacist John Walker was striving to create a new gun paste in November 1826. After concocting a mixture of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, and gum arabic and stirring it with a wooden stick until it combined, he moved to clean the blending tool. As he struck it on his fire hearth, it immediately burst into flames.
Realizing the possibilities of his discovery, the pharmacist sold the first “friction light” in his store in April 1827. The original matches were made with cardboard, but Walker eventually hand-cut wooden splints for his invention. As they became more popular, he packaged them in boxes with small sandpaper attached to make lighting a fire simpler than it had ever been.
Though Walker was credited with revolutionizing the ease and transferability of an instant fire with his invention, he never patented the matchstick. Because the igniting paste sometimes fell from his hand-cut sticks, he felt they were a safety hazard and needed more revisions. Two years later, another Briton named Samuel Jones stole his idea, rebranded the matches as “Lucifers,” and patented the invention.
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