Just like Isaac Newton and his apple, the first spark of the household match can be considered one of those wonderfully British accidental occurrences. When he was stirring a pot of chemicals in his high street shop in Stockton-on-Tees in 1826, chemist John Walker noticed that a lump of the noxious mixture had dried on the end of his wooden stick. Attempting to scrape it off the hearthstone, it produced an unexpected eruption of light and heat. This was, to Walker’s great surprise and confusion, the first controlled flame ever created by friction. His startled horse, tethered outside, is also said to have bolted, making it arguably the first equine witness to spontaneous human fire since Prometheus had his ancient tangle with Olympus.

Walker immediately grasped what he had stumbled upon.

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