John Walker was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 chemist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

 who invented the friction match.

Life and work

Walker was born in Stockton-on-Tees

Stockton-on-Tees

Stockton-on-Tees is a market town in north east England. It is the major settlement in the unitary authority and borough of Stockton-on-Tees. For ceremonial purposes, the borough is split between County Durham and North Yorkshire as it also incorporates a number of smaller towns including...

 in 1781. He went to the local grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 and was afterwards apprenticed to Watson Alcock, the principal surgeon

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

 of the town serving him as an assistant-surgeon. He had, however, an aversion to surgical operations, and had to leave the profession, turning instead to chemistry. After studying at Durham

Durham

Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

 and York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

, he set up a small business as a chemist and druggist at 59 High Street, Stockton, around 1818.

He developed a keen interest in trying to find a means of obtaining fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

 easily. Several chemical mixtures were already 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 started making friction matches. They consisted of wooden splints or sticks of cardboard coated with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chlorate of potash

Potassium chlorate

Potassium chlorate is a compound containing potassium, chlorine and oxygen atoms, with the molecular formula KClO3. In its pure form, it is a white crystalline substance. It is the most common chlorate in industrial use...

, and gum

Natural gum

Natural gums are polysaccharides of natural origin, capable of causing a large viscosity increase in solution, even at small concentrations. In the food industry they are used as thickening agents, gelling agents, emulsifying agents, and stabilizers...

, the sulphur serving to communicate the flame to the wood.

The price of a box of 50 matches was one shilling. With each box was supplied a piece of sandpaper, folded double, through which the match had to be drawn to ignite it. He named the matches "Congreves" in honour of the inventor and rocket

Congreve rocket

The Congreve Rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804.The rocket was developed by the British Royal Arsenal following the experiences of the Second, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars. The wars fought between the British East India Company and the...

 pioneer, Sir William Congreve. He did not divulge the exact composition of his matches.

Two and a half years after Walker's invention was made public, Isaac Holden

Isaac Holden

Sir Isaac Holden, 1st Baronet was an inventor and manufacturer, who is known both for his work with wool-combing and with matches....

 arrived, independently, at the same idea of coating wooden splinters with sulphur. The exact date of his discovery, according to his own statement, was October 1829. Previously to this date, Walker's sales-book contains an account of no fewer than 250 sales of friction matches, the first entry bearing the date 7 April 1827. He refused to patent his invention, despite being encouraged to by Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....

 and others, considering it too trivial. However, he was still able to mass a sufficient fortune from his invention to enable him to retire from business.

Walker died in Stockton on 1 May 1859 and was buried in the grounds of St Mary's Church in Norton

Norton, County Durham

Norton is a suburb of Stockton-on-Tees in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It still retains a village area, with a high street and village green with mostly Georgian houses; the original village dates back to at least the Anglo-Saxon period...

, near Stockton.

External links

• John Walker & The Match ("This is Stockton")
• John Walker's Friction Light (BBC: A History of the World in 100 Objects)
• John Walker of Stockton-on-Tees - Inventor Of The Friction Match (Youtube)