Matchless - Lighting Fires in the Victorian Era

    We have two wood-fired stoves in the house - the larger wood stove in the front parlor, which contributes to heating the house, and Milly, the wood cook stove in the back kitchen.  We also have a substantial number of oil lamps and candles, and all of these have to be lit in one way or another.  You would think it would be just a matter of grabbing a barbecue lighter and flicking away, but that wouldn't be very Victorian, and I can't seem to get the darn things to work most of the time anyway.  They seem to require three hands, and the resulting flame is similar to a blowtorch, which I find is a bit much.  So we are left with two options: flint and steel and matches.  

And all matches are not created equal, as you will soon see. 

    Learning how to use a flint and steel is great fun.  This technique for fire starting has been around since at least Roman times and very likely far earlier than that.  I learned the basic technique at one of the historical re-enactment events nearby that attracts all kinds of folks who are interested in history, mostly the Revolutionary War period, and who bring skills from the period with them to the event.  We spent an evening by a fire with two very patient voyageurs, bashing away at our flints with our steel strikers and flinging bits of flint perilously near our eyes, but the pleasure of seeing those little sparks fly into the night more than made up for the danger we were so obviously in.  After our first foray,  it was just a matter of practice and learning to keep the operation a bit farther away from the face.  There's a certain cache about this early method of fire starting that using matches doesn't quite equal and which a lighter is utterly without.  Flint and steel is truly a step back in time.

   

Here's  a basic flint and and steel set up.  On the left you will see three flints.  You only need one that fits your hand well.  I like English flints.  The wooly looking bird's nest at the top is flax tow - the leftover fiber from processing flax.  The black square is a piece of char cloth which is cotton that has been carbonized by cutting it into small squares, putting them into a tea tin with holes punched in the top, and setting the whole thing in a fire until the flames stop coming out of the holes in the top (you can see the tin in the photo below).  What is left when you open the tin are flimsy squares of blackened cotton called char cloth, and the tin is their storage container.  On the right side of the photo are two steel strikers in two different patterns.  You only need one of these.  

    At home, it all fits nicely into a salt-glazed crock with a lid.  I have two of these crocks - one by the parlor stove and one by Milly, the wood cookstove, with their respective char cloth tins.  You can use any kind of container you like, really, and you can use any tinder that easily catches fire, such as dry grass or straw.  There are all kinds of artisans who make the steel fire strikers, and you can purchase one of these, a good English flint, and flax tow online.  An 8 oz. bag of flax tow will last you for ages.

    Here's how it all works.   Build your fire using some nice, dry kindling at the bottom.  Make a little bird's nest of your flax tow and set it to one side where you can reach it quickly.  Take a piece of char cloth out of its container.  Holding the flint in one hand, cover it with the piece of char cloth, leaving just a bit of the edge of the flint exposed.  Tip the flint with the char cloth downwards so that it is at a slight angle, with the striking edge of the flint lower than the part in your hand.   Sparks tend to fly upwards, and holding your flint at a slight angle gives you a better chance that a spark will land on your char cloth.  Whack the edge of the striker against the edge of the flint with a swift, downward stroke.  When done correctly, this will cause a spark to fly up.  After a few strikes (or a few more strikes), a spark should land somewhere on your cloth (it's really impressive when you can do this on the first strike).  Take your cloth with the little spark on it, and place it in the bird's nest of tow, making sure the spark is in contact with the tow.  Blow on the spark in the bird's nest.  You'll see the tow start to smolder and then catch fire with a "whhooomp!".  Quickly put the burning tow under the kindling, and you're off!  If you're going to try your hand at this method of fire starting, just make sure that any materials that would catch fire rapidly are out of the way.  When the tow catches fire, it burns high and hot, and you have to move quickly.  I use a flint and steel about 50% of the time when starting a fire.  I just like it.  By the way, I recommend practicing with just the flint and steel first until you get the hang of striking sparks rather than knapping flint.  

    What in heaven's name, you might ask, does any of this have to do with Victorian technology?  Why not just use a match?  Remember, dear reader, that early in Victoria's reign, the American pioneers were moving westward.  Fires had to be started every night to cook food and perhaps again the following morning.  It could take months to travel across the prairie and over the Rockies to reach the western frontier.  That's a lot of matches.  On the other hand, a little dry grass, a square of char cloth, which could be made anytime the supply ran low, and a flint and steel meant that a fire could be started anywhere.  

    But let us leave the attractions of flint and steel behind us and take up the humble match.   Throughout most of the Victorian era, heat and light came in the form of candles, oil lamps, kerosene heaters, and firewood, and for most people, unless they were crossing the prairie in a covered wagon, all those called for matches.  There was no flicking of a light switch, setting a thermostat, or turning a knob on the stove.  It all depended on a match.

    The history of matches, and who did what when, is rather hard to determine.  The first modern, self-igniting match was probably invented in 1805 by Jean Chancel, assistant to Professor Louis Jacques Thénard of Paris. It was followed in 1817 by the “Ethereal Match” which consisted of a strip of paper treated with phosphorus that ignited when it came into contact with air.  The paper was sealed in a tube and quickly burst into flames when it was removed.  This invention sounds more like a method of self immolation than a means of lighting a candle.  I would have stuck to my flint and steel, thank you very much.

      In 1826 John Walker was in a laboratory in the back of his apothecary trying to develop a new explosive, presumably before afternoon teatime.  As he stirred the chemicals with a wooden stick, he noticed a tear-shaped drop had dried to the stick’s tip. He tried to remove the drop by scraping it across the stone floor, and the stick ignited. Hey!  Presto!  A match!  A friend of Walker's, Samuel Jones, saw a commercial goldmine and set up a match making business shortly thereafter.  He called his matchsticks "Lucifers," and Londoners loved them.  

    There was a design flaw, though, to these delightful little fire starters: these early matches gave off a shower of sparks when ignited and an odor so horrible that boxes carried a warning, “If possible avoid inhaling gas; Persons whose lungs are delicate should not use Lucifers.”  Lucifer appeared to be an apt name for these matches: they smelled like the very bowels of Hell itself.

    From there, the safety match was developed.  Safety matches were designed to strike on their boxes only.  There were scads of different brands with charming names like Bee & Snail, Cactus, and The Tiger.  These sound more like pub names to me.  There was even a brand called "The Duel Just So!" which featured an illustration of a crocodile attempting to pull an elephant into a river while the poor pachyderm resists valiantly.  Gruesome but memorable.

    

Even Queen Victoria got her own Diamond Jubilee trademarked box of safety matches.  

   

Sadly, manufacturing the matches created serious health problems for the workers, mostly women, due to constant exposure to the phosphorus required to make the matches.  This led eventually to the great Match Girls Strike of 1888, after which conditions for the workers improved thanks to the efforts of Annie Besant and the Salvation Army.

    The Diamond matches which are so ubiquitous today were manufactured beginning in 1880.  The boxes you see on the shelves say "Strike Anywhere."  That's what the old Lucifers used to do, and that's precisely what red-tipped Diamond matches don't do - it's the side of the box or nothing, and the side of the box tends to degrade rapidly leaving part of a box of matches and nothing to strike them on. The Ohio Blue Tip matches I grew up with, which actually did strike anywhere, are only to be found on Ebay for $18.50 per box as a "vintage" item.  Really.

    Which brings us round to match holders and match safes with striking surfaces like these:   

    These are two very simple, utilitarian, antique match holders.  Some match holders are very elaborate and very collectible, but I err on the side of functionality and thrift.  The one on the left has two compartments: one on the left side for unused matches and another on the right side for spent ones.  

    You can also see that each of these antique match holders has a striking surface: the one on the left has a striking surface in the middle, and the one on the right has striking surfaces on both sides.  I have, however, been unable to strike a single spark anywhere on either of them when I have used one of the red-tipped Diamond matches.  The matches will break, the tip will wear off, but not a spark, and certainly no flame.  It was easier to turn on the gas stove and light my matches there, which is hardly Victorian.  I could only admire my match holders as semi-functional, largely decorative items, and there are few things that irritate me more than an antique item that doesn't work and is relegated to a dust catcher.  I was baffled.  There was no reason that the striking surfaces shouldn't work.  They had been used in the past to judge from the marks on the striking surfaces.   It had to be the matches.  Clearly, all matches were not created equal.

    Enter the new Diamond Greenlight matches to solve the problem and make my match holders work once again. I love these little fire sticks.  I can zip one along the striking surfaces of my match holders, and they fire up every time.  I don't know what's different, and I really don't care.  They work, and the green tip is a cheerful color.  I can now look for other match holders and have one in every room, ready to light a candle or oil lamp in a moment.  Though they may not know it, the Diamond Match Company has raised the spirits of Victorian match users everywhere.

     I have always had a fondness for  miniature boxes of wooden matches in addition to the large ones, and I just had to find ones that reminded me a bit of the Victorian match box covers.   These were made in Sweden, as many of the old matches in the Victorian era were.  I think they're delightful.

    It's such a small, simple thing,  a match, so minor as to be overlooked, but the ability of people to strike a fire without the use of flint and steel was an enormous technological leap forward.  Rather than inserting a small stick into the hearth fire to light something, the match was small, portable, and didn't require an existing fire to use.  As for me, I am finally able to use the Victorian match holders that I've had for years for their intended purpose, and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction.  When I need a match to light a candle or oil lamp or to start the wood stoves, the matches are right at hand, and I don't have to search for the box.   I can just take one from the holder on the wall, strike it on the surface, and use my pretty green match however I please.

    Now that I finally have a match that works, there will be match holders in every room.  The antique stores will be delighted, and I already have a little grinning devil holder (Lucifer?) ready to go.  I wonder if he knows his history?