John Walker and his side project: Matchsticks

In a modest pharmacy in northeastern England, John Walker accidentally revolutionized humanity's relationship with fire. While mixing chemicals after hours, this small-town pharmacist created the first practical friction match—transforming fire-starting from a frustrating daily challenge into a simple action we now take for granted.

Walker spent his career as a dedicated apothecary in Stockton-on-Tees, a market town in County Durham, England. His shop was "filled with the scents of camphor and lavender, a sanctuary for those seeking cures for ailments both real and imagined."

As a community healer, Walker prepared medications, advised patients on treatments, and served as a trusted medical resource before modern healthcare. His daily work as a practical chemist involved mixing remedies according to early 19th-century pharmacological understanding.

Walker's profession demanded precision, patience, and chemical knowledge—skills that would prove invaluable for his accidental invention.

In the 1820s, creating fire required striking steel against flint to create sparks—a skill-intensive process often requiring multiple attempts. Wealthy households used expensive, dangerous alternatives like glass fire-lenses or phosphorus-based "instantaneous light boxes."

Walker's curious mind sought practical improvements to fire-starting. After shop hours, he conducted chemical experiments at his workplace laboratory, leveraging his professional knowledge for practical innovation.

His breakthrough came in 1826 while stirring a mixture of antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate. Walker noticed that a dried lump on his wooden stirring stick burst into flames when scraped against his hearth. He methodically refined his formula, adding gum arabic as a binder and coating wooden splints with sulfur to transfer the flame.

In April 1827, Walker began selling his "friction lights" from his pharmacy, with his first documented sale to a local solicitor. Despite their popularity, he never patented his matches, partly due to perfectionist concerns—"sometimes the sulfur would sputter or bits of the burning head would fall off," making them somewhat unpredictable.

Walker carved out time for his chemical explorations by extending his workday and pursuing experiments with methodical persistence.

He "often stayed late experimenting with chemicals after tending to his shop," using quiet evening hours when his pharmaceutical duties were complete. Walker utilized his pharmacy's existing equipment, turning his business space into a research lab after customers had gone.

Rather than pursuing abstract scientific knowledge, Walker directed his experimental energy toward solving specific practical problems. This approach demonstrates how passion projects can emerge naturally when professional expertise is given space to develop beyond its original context.

Walker's invention spread like, well… wildfire, though others reaped most financial rewards and recognition during his lifetime.

Entrepreneur Samuel Jones quickly copied Walker's formula and marketed his version as "Lucifers" by 1829. In 1830, French chemist Charles Sauria improved the formula by adding white phosphorus—making matches more user-friendly but tragically causing "phossy jaw" among factory workers.

Despite creating one of history's most transformative inventions, Walker "never became rich or famous" and "made only a modest living from the matches he sold" before his death in 1859 at age 78.

Walker's greatest achievement was democratizing access to fire—transforming it from a skill requiring practice and special tools into a simple action accessible to anyone. As one historian noted, "Every match that flames to life with a simple scratch owes a debt to John Walker's late-night experiment. His story is a reminder that sometimes a small accident in the back of a shop can ignite a change felt around the world."