John  WALKER

WALKER, JOHN, inventor of friction matches, was born at Stockton-on-Tees in 1780 or 1781. He was articled to Watson Alcock, the principal surgeon of the town, and served him as assistant-surgeon. He had, however, an insurmountable aversion from surgical operations, and in consequence turned his attention to chemistry.

After studying at Durham and York, he set up a small business as chemist and druggist at 59 High Street, Stockton, about 1818. He was a tolerable chemist, and was especially interested in searching for a means of obtaining fire easily. Several chemical mixtures were known which would ignite by a sudden explosion, but it had not been found possible to transmit the flame to a slow-burning substance like wood. While Walker was preparing a lighting mixture on one occasion, a match which had been dipped in it took fire by an accidental friction upon the hearth. He at once appreciated the practical value of the discovery, and commenced making friction matches. They

In 1827 the first friction match was invented in England by John Walker. Walker's matches were sticks tipped with a mixture of chemicals that burst into flame when scratched against a rough surface.

Walker found that when the mixture dried, he could ignite the stick by drawing the head through a piece of sandpaper. Other people began making such matches, but they presented many problems. They were hard to ignite, they didn't always light properly, and the heads often came off.

In 1830 the walker matches were improved by substituting white phosphorus for one of the ingredients. This type of match was first made in the United States in 1836.

Sulfur was used to help the match-head flame light the wooden splint. The sulfur was later replaced with paraffin, and fire retardants were added to the wooden match splint to make it burn more slowly.

In 1911 an American match company perfected a formula that used a nonpoisonous compound of phosphorus and sulfur, and thus eliminated