Fire Without Matches by M. J. Abadie

Today we are so accustomed not only to common matches, but to cigarette lighters both in our pockets and in our vehicles — and sophisticated gas cartridge barbecue lighters — that it's hard for us to imagine how people lit fires or candles without them. Of course, we've all heard of twirling a stick on a stone to strike a spark (hard-core wilderness students learn this technique), but what did the common folk do before the invention of matches?

The prevalent method was repeatedly striking steel against flint (a hard shale rock). Every home had a tinderbox, containing a steel striker, some flint, and tinder — a cotton rag, straw, or wood.

It took approximately 3 minutes to strike a light using the tinderbox method. This was not a job for the impatient. And if the tinder was damp, it took much longer. Sometimes, in wet weather — common in England — it wouldn't strike at all. One can imagine the frustration on a cold morning!

Got a Match?

The invention of sulfur matches was a great boon, and getting the tinder to light became a much easier job. The moment a spark hit the tinder, it was used to ignite the sulfur match. Later on, the discovery of sulfur matches that could be ignited by friction — the kind of matches we still use today — caused the old tinderbox to become outmoded.

Revolutionary Developments by M. J. Abadie

The state of candle making changed little until the Industrial Revolution period, roughly from l750 to l850, during which striking changes in the economic structure of the world took place. Voyages of exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries paved the way for worldwide commerce. Capitalism appeared as early as the seventeenth century.

The developments brought about by the Industrial Revolution economically and socially had great effects on chandlery, or candle making. The renaissance of candle crafting occurred during the first half of the nineteenth century when candle molding machines were invented.

The year l825 saw the invention of the braided wick by a Frenchman named Cambaceres. The braided wick solved the problem of wicks that burned unevenly and had to be “snuffed,” or trimmed, while alight. With one thread in a braided wick tighter than the others, the wick can trim itself as it burns. This was a major improvement, which meant that candles produced with braided wicks were more efficient (a non-braided wick had to be trimmed frequently — as often as every thirty minutes). Even so, candles were still made by the same old time-consuming, labor-intensive handmade methods, and candle makers were still limited in the number of candles they could produce in a day's work.

Then, in l834, Joseph Morgan invented a machine that could produce molded candles at the rate of about l,500 per hour. This machine could wick continuously. The new ability to mass-produce candles changed the lives of everyone. For the first time, candles became an affordable commodity available to almost everyone.

That same year, another important innovation was introduced — the “mordanting” process. This was a major breakthrough in candle making. Mordanting — soaking the wick material in an acid-like solution — causes the burned end of the wick to curl at a 90° angle away from the pool of melted wax, outside of the flame zone, where it turns to ash.

Back in the bad old days of whaling when that supremely useful animal was hunted almost to extinction for its oils and spermaceti, stearic acid was refined from whale oil. Today, thankfully, it is made from palm tree nuts so that no animals are sacrificed in its manufacture.

In l850, commercially manufactured paraffin was introduced, providing a welcome alternative to tallow (animal fat). And when the chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul discovered that tallow was not one substance, but a composition of two fatty acids — stearic acid and oleic acid — he invented a new substance known as stearin. Added to paraffin, stearin produced a harder, opaque, longer-burning candle.

It was this breakthrough that transformed candlemaking into what we know today. Factory-made cheap commercial candles became available to the general public and effectively ended the tremendous effort of making candles by hand.

By l854 paraffin and stearin were being combined to create stronger, longer-burning candles of the type with which we are familiar. Some combination of the two is still the basic candle making stock. Today's home candlemaker regularly uses a combination of paraffin and stearin.

The only other substance that was used to make comparable candles was spermaceti, from the cachalot (sperm whale). Spermaceti was utilized in candle production during the l800s when the whaling business was at its height, but it was expensive, and not in common use. Highly desirable because it did not smoke or smell, it was a luxury for the rich.