Last week, I wrote about the history of the development of the friction match in the years surrounding the Regency. If you have read that article, you will remember that there were a few innovative, expensive and rather dangerous match types available during those years. With the exception of a few wealthy and adventurous early adopters, these experimental matches were not widely used during the Regency. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the friction match was in general circulation.

But fire was necessary to everyone, as it was the source of both light and heat. So how did most people manage fire during the Regency?

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Literally.    Matches as we know them were not available during the years of the Regency since they had not yet been invented. Fire was not yet truly portable during the decade of the Regency, though it would move in that direction by the end of the reign of George IV. But matches would not become the inexpensive and ubiquitous fire source we now take for granted until the reign of his niece, Queen Victoria.

And yet, "matches" had been in existence since the early Middle Ages. A form of match was developed in China in 577AD by the ladies of a besieged court in need of fire for cooking. By the fourteenth century, the "match" was known in Europe, but it was rather more like what we know as a wick or a fuse. It was a chemically treated cord which burned slowly, but continuously and could be used to ignite the touch-hole of a cannon or a camp fire. Wooden splints called spunks or "matches," dipped in brimstone were one of the usual contents of the tinderbox. But none of these "matches" are comparable to the matches we use today, more precisely designated the "friction match."

So, when and where was the friction match invented and when did it come into common use?

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