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Historical Match Innovations

Sulfur-head matches from 1828 were lit by dipping them into a bottle of phosphorus. In 1849, Heurtner introduced matches meant for lighting cigars in London called "Euperion" or "Empyrion", while outdoor matches were called "Vesuvians". Both indoor and outdoor matches had a bulb of sulfuric acid at the tip that needed to be broken to start the chemical reaction and ignite the match. Chemical matches were unable to achieve mass production due to their expense, cumbersome nature, and inherent danger.

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40 views2 pages

Historical Match Innovations

Sulfur-head matches from 1828 were lit by dipping them into a bottle of phosphorus. In 1849, Heurtner introduced matches meant for lighting cigars in London called "Euperion" or "Empyrion", while outdoor matches were called "Vesuvians". Both indoor and outdoor matches had a bulb of sulfuric acid at the tip that needed to be broken to start the chemical reaction and ignite the match. Chemical matches were unable to achieve mass production due to their expense, cumbersome nature, and inherent danger.

Uploaded by

Miss Giglerific
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sulfur-head matches, 1828, lit by dipping into a bottle of phosphorus

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",
[9]
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
[10]
stems. Both Vesuvians and Prometheans had a bulb of sulfuric acid at the tip which had to be
[11]
broken to start the reaction.
Samuel Jones introduced fuzees for lighting cigars and pipes in 1832. A similar invention was
[12]
patented in 1839 by John Hucks Stevens in America.
In 1832, William Newton patented the "wax vesta" in England. It consisted of a wax stem that
embedded cotton threads and had a tip of phosphorus. Variants known as "candle matches"
[10]
were made by Savaresse and Merckel in 1836. John Hucks Stevens also patented a safety
[13]
version of the friction match in 1839.

Friction matches[edit]

A tin "Congreves" matchbox (1827), produced by John Walker, inventor of the friction match.

Chemical matches were unable to make the leap into mass production, due to the expense, their
cumbersome nature and inherent danger. An alternative method was to produce the ignition
through friction produced by rubbing two rough surfaces together. An early example was made
by François Derosne in 1816. His crude match was called a briquet phosphorique and it used a
sulfur-tipped match to scrape inside a tube coated internally with phosphorus. It was both
[14][15]
inconvenient and unsafe.

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