Döbereiner Lamps were some of the first ever lighters to be invented. Developed by German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (1780 – 1849) in 1823 Fire-drill, in form of a peeled slender twig, and hearth, used by the Sambaa people, north-eastern Tanzania, East Africa. Books are generally reviewed when they first come out, but Proletarian has no need to follow such a bourgeois convention, not when it comes across a very useful historical study, which Louise Raw’s Striking a Light most certainly is.

According to Finnish folklore, "fire-steels contained magical powers. They were used in spells with which e.g. evil supernatural powers and lightnings were held away" (Raisio Archaeology Archive. Fire-Steel - TYA 619:273). Raw, Louise: ‘Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History’, Continuum, 2011 Annie Besant, William Stead, Catharine Booth, William Booth and Henry Hyde Champion continued to campaign against the use of yellow phosphorous. In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own match-factory in Old Ford, East London. Only using harmless red phosphorus, the workers were soon producing six million boxes a year. Whereas Bryant & May paid their workers just over twopence a gross, the Salvation Army paid their employees twice this amount. A box of ‘Rupee Taendstiikker’ matches, sulphur-dipped and made with yellow, phosphorus. The box is decorated with Indian rupee coins, produced for export to India; made at Christiania Taendstikfabrik, Heggedal, Norway, 1874-1895. Louise Raw makes a great play on calling the matchgirls “matchwomen”, arguing that this gives them more gravitas and respect. However, as most of matchgirls were teenagers, and a good many were children, while only a few were over the age of 22, it seems more logical to use the traditional term ‘matchgirls’.Besant, Stead and Champion used their newspapers to call for a boycott of Bryant & May matches. The women at the company also decided to form a Matchgirls' Union and Besant agreed to become its leader. After three weeks the company announced that it was willing to re-employ the dismissed women and would also bring an end to the fines system. The women accepted the terms and returned in triumph. The Bryant & May dispute was the first strike by unorganized workers to gain national publicity. It was also successful at helped to inspire the formation of unions all over the country. While true touchwood does not grow in North America, apparently other shelf-fungi from birch trees will work as well. Experimentation with various tree fungi, using the preparation methods described for touchwood, should determine which fungi in your local area will work best. Fire-Making Kits

One refinement on this technique suggested by B. E. Spencer ("Making Fire with Flint and Steel") is to add a candle to your fire-making kit:True flint and steel fire starting is a low temperature method of spark-based fire starting. This means that the orange-colored sparks generated by steel on stone are cooler than the white hot sparks generated by modern, ferrocerium-based sparking tools often sold in sporting goods stores or by the Boy Scouts. To start a fire using the Viking Age flint and steel method, you need flint or a hard stone, steel and tinder. A spectacular but very readable account of epic original research that has uncovered a very different story from the traditional tale ... [Raw's] claim for this as an important foundation of New Unionism is strong also, so this really is a must-read book if you're interested in British political history.

In the exceptionally cold July of 1888, some 1,400 workers went on strike at Bryant and May's match factory in the East End of London. These workers - mainly women and girls - walked out of their workplace and into the history books. Indeed, as the author of this fascinating book notes, the match women's strike has become something of a historical cliche, often the only example of industrial action by female workers that even experts could cite. It may be worth making plain that denying Mrs Annie Besant the deciding role conventional history has given her does not make the Bryant and May strike ‘spontaneous’. However, while Louise Raw identifies the strike leaders, she has not traced (perhaps she could not) the full internal details of the strike. Rather than Mrs Annie Besant leading the matchgirls’ strike, she tried to quash it with a consumers’ boycott, but once it took place and proved successful, she was happy to represent the matchgirls at the 1889 TUC conference. The first ingredient for Viking Age fire-making is the steel. Steel fire-strikers are called fire-steels or strike-a-lights. Fire-steels are a very common type of personal equipment throughout the Viking Age, appearing occasionally in female graves, but most commonly accompanying male burials (Koch). The fire-steel was a piece of personal equipment, which could be carried hanging from a belt or in a pouch with other fire-making equipment (Roesdahl, From Viking to Crusader, Catalog #61, p. 244). Touchwood was collected in Europe in August and September, chiefly from oak and beech, the best being from oak. The substance was then prepared for use by removing the exterior rind and cutting the inner part into thin slices, which were washed first in weak alkali, then in water and then beaten with a hammer and worked until they become a soft, pliable felt-like material that could be easily torn by the fingers. For making tinder, the felt-like material was charred in exactly the same way that charcloth is made, and then soaked in "strong urine" where it was boiled for several days. Urine contains sodium nitrate, which is very similar to the potassium nitrate ("saltpeter") found in gunpowder. The difference is that sodium nitrate tends to be more hygroscopic (absorbs moisture more readily) than saltpeter.

One of the oldest and most widespread methods of fire-making is by using tinder, flint, and steel. Even ‘Ötzi’, the natural mummy of a man who lived 5300 years ago in the Ötztal Alps in Austria, was found with flint, iron pyrites, and a collection of different plants for tinder.

A: Yes, but I've no doubt they have been influenced by the twaddle of one. (4) The Times (June, 1888) Tinder box made from the shells of two half gourds, containing flint, steel, and tinder in form of the pithy flower stem of an agave plant. Collected by R. Kislingbury on Saint Lucia, West Indies, Caribbean Sea, in 1910.

The NUWM was identified with is leader Wal Hannington (1896-1966), founder member of the CPGB. In 1925 Hannington was one of 12 members of the Communist party convicted at the Old Bailey under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 (in the run-up to the general strike of 1926), and one of the five defendants sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. The matchgirls’ strike, Raw argues, should be seen as a product of the political awakening heralded by the socialist revival of 1884, which saw the founding of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) by HM Hyndman and the Socialist League (in which Eleanor Marx chose to operate) by William Morris. [ 7]