Who invented the tinderbox

But an occupational culture is about more than finding ways to pass the time. For new recruits, having something to tell was a form of cultural capital with which they could ease their entry into an intimidating environment.

The swagger and savagery of the barracks style created a cultural divide between soldiers and the communities from which they came and to which they returned. Just as veterans retained their moustaches and their pipes, as markers of their status as experienced men of the world, so they maintained the storytelling techniques learnt in the army. The ability to narrate in turn enhanced their reputation in their home villages.

An occupational culture is, in effect, a set of norms, albeit ones that are never strictly defined. The soldier had to dispense with the moral lessons inculcated at home, in school and in Church.

He was defined by his adherence to a purely material value system and a fatalistic outlook. He should be brave, certainly, but he should not be fool.

David Hopkin chapter the main chance. His relations with women should be determined by what his comrades found most entertaining. Of course this process of acculturation was never entirely concluded: recruits brought their own cultural ammunition with which to resist the process, and they were subject to other, competing pressures, from officers and increasingly as the century wore on from commercial culture.

These frequently mention storytelling as an element of their military experiences, and their authors also utilized elements of the barracks oral style. In their memoirs they relate elements of fairy-tales as if they happened to them. As the name implies, it is basically a route map of his travels across the globe as a member of the 89th demi-brigade.

It contains almost no personal opinions or reflections. We did so and went into a forest mixed with briars and thorns. We separated from each other in this forest. I followed a ravine that took me near to a house where there were brigands [rebels]. I saw a nightingale perched on a palm-tree. I fired at it and I could not have been more surprised to see coming out of this house about twenty armed black brigands, who fired on me. Then he went to the window to see if his companions had returned.

I told them Gentlemen, if you had had the difficulties I had during my hunt you would not laugh like this I told them of how I had been caught up, and the result of my adventure. The bailiff said to me You were lucky to have escaped from such great danger. I forgot to tell you when we set off. David Hopkin chapter as in this memoir, occasions a good laugh. Although neither victim will admit it they have been beaten up by a supernatural being that inhabits the place. Only the third manages to escape and then confronts his comrades about their failure to warn him.

When trying to explain something out of the ordinary, something that could not be encapsulated in a list of troop movements, he reached for a narrative schema with which he was familiar. But his use of such motifs also reveals something otherwise not explicit in the text. It was the Romantics who first put such tales before the reading public of the Restoration, but as we have seen, the material did not easily fit with their literary ideals.

One can tentatively make a case that it was the next literary generation, the realists, who really benefitted from the discovery of this aspect of plebeian oral culture. Many leading realist writers were active in collecting projects inspired by the Grimms, including Theodor Storm in Germany and Henrik Ibsen in Norway. A convincing portrayal of the illiterate masses meant realists had to make use of oral culture.

He fills his pockets with money, finds the tinderbox, and returns to the witch. When she demands the tinderbox without giving a reason, the soldier lops off her head with his sword. In the following scene, the soldier enters a large city and buys himself splendid clothing.

He makes many friends, and lives in a magnificent apartment. He learns of a princess kept in a tower after a prophecy foretold her marriage to a common soldier; his interest is piqued and he wants to see her but realizes his whim cannot be satisfied. Eventually, the soldier's money is depleted and he is forced to live in a dark attic.

He strikes the tinderbox to light the room, and one of the dogs appears before him. The soldier then discovers he can summon all three dogs and order them to bring him money from their subterranean dwelling. Again, he lives splendidly. One night, he recalls the story of the princess in the locked tower, and desires to see her. He strikes the tinderbox and sends the dog with eyes the size of teacups to bring her to his apartment.

The soldier is overwhelmed with her beauty, kisses her and orders the dog to return her to the tower. The following morning, the princess tells her parents she has had a strange dream and relates the night's adventure.

The royal couple then watch her closely. These tinder pistols were very expensive and were most commonly owned by the very wealthy who enjoyed ingenious devices. They were not much easier to use than a regular tinderbox, but they did have that elusive cool factor.

As noted above, country men had an alternative to the tinderbox, as they often carried touch-paper and a flint as they went about their outdoor activities. Most country men also carried a knife, which could be used in place of a steel with the flint to strike sparks to ignite the touch-paper if they needed a fire while away from home.

Touch-paper would ignite fairly easily, but it would also burn slowly and steadily. Thus, there was no need of a match. The touch-paper itself could be used to transfer the nascent fire to where ever it was needed. Touch-paper also had the benficial feature that it was not prone to spontaneous combustion. It required an ingnition source, such as the sparks from the flint and steel to produce flame. In daylight, it could also be ignited by the use of a magnifying glass or similar lens which would focus the rays of the sun on it surface.

Now that you know the effort required from those who lived during the Regency, and the centuries which preceded it, to start a fire, you can easily understand why the invention of the friction match was so incredibly important. Imagine rising on a cold, dark, winter morning to find that your kitchen fire had died during the night. You would have to fumble in the dark to find the tinderbox, grasp the cold flint and steel and struggle to strike enough sparks to ignite the tinder in the box.

Gently you would blow on the tinder till the smoldering tinder was burning strongly enough that you could ignite a sulphur match. You would then use the match to light a candle, damper the tinder and then use your candle to relight your kitchen fire.

Imagine how convenient a friction match would be after the drawn-out procedure of making fire with a tinderbox. With a friction match, a simple strike and you instantly had fire at your fingertips. As I pointed out in my previous article on matches, the seeming miracle of the friction match was unknown during the Regency. Making fire was a complicated and painstaking process during that decade. From now on, when you read about a character striking a match to light a candle, a cheroot or a fire in a Regency novel, you will know your author has not done their research.

Perhaps there is a certain attractive manly factor when a man lights a friction match, but knowing how much skill and patience is necessary to successfully start a fire using a tinderbox, I must admit that I find a man who can do that efficiently much more sexy than one who simply strikes a match. I got ta have me a tinder pistol! Glad I read this. Tinder smoulders, it does not flame. You strike the flint in the steel, not the steel on the flint. You need the sparks to go down, not up.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. It is curious that your remarks are pretty much the exact opposite of the information I found in eighteenth and nineteenth century sources. It would appear that the technology of the tinderbox has not yet stopped evolving.

The charred cloth is placed on top of the quartz which in turn is struck by the carbon steel striker. The ignited charcloth is placed inside a jute bundle and blown into flames. The tinder box has been replaced by an Altoids tin but is alive and well. Thanks for sharing! Glad to know there are still folks in the world who know how to make fire the old-fashioned way.

I would never have thought of an Altoid tin as a tinderbox, but certainly the use of that which solves a problem harks back to our ancestors. Reblogged this on Amy Quinton and commented: Fascinating reading about the process of starting a fire in Regency times.

Both, but it depended upon the main purpose to which the fire was to be put. By the Regency, coal was most often used for fires which were only intended to heat a room. However, there were still a lot of people who preferred that their food be cooked over a wood fire. Of course, wood had to be used to smoke meat, fish, cheese and other foods.

How long would a rushlight last? Would a draught blow the light out? If you woke in a dark room, how long would it take you to catch a spark and coax it into something that would light a candle?

Practice would help, of course, but it seems to have been a hassle for many people. Some people kept a fire, or tiled stove, burning all winter or even all year. It wasn't just for the warmth in cold weather. It must have been so convenient to take a light from the hearth, and fan the embers back to life without having to start another day by knocking stone on metal. You could do this in different ways: for instance, covering the fire with a dense layer of fuel or, more economically, using a thick blanket of ashes.

In the morning you blew the embers back to life, and fed the fire. Keeping a fire going round the clock was not unusual in colonial America, and it was common in cooler European countries, except in big cities with regulations about putting out fires at night.

In Scotland and Ireland keeping peat fires alive overnight, all year, had symbolic as well as practical importance, and suggested good luck and a welcoming home. In the Western Isles of Scotland the flint and steel were not widely used, even in the 18th century.

A piece of iron curved to fit over a hand and fingers could take various shapes. Some were simple, others decorative. One classic shape left became a heraldic symbol.

Those used at home and kept in a box near the fireplace or candle holder were usually quite plain. English and American tinderboxes often held a simple hook-shaped firesteel that would hang over fingers.

The human hand's shape guaranteed similarities between steels in different cultures: look at this fine Persian steel , presumably not designed for the kitchen shelf. You needed a sharp-edged piece of flint or other hard stone to strike a spark on the steel.

Sometimes called a strike-a-light a name also used for the steel occasionally , it had to be kept sharp, or replaced. Writers often complained about scraped knuckles and other wounds from flint hitting skin.