John Walker was born in Stockton-on-Tees in , third son of a grocer, draper and druggist. But he never managed to get used to the sight of blood and flesh wounds, and so he left and went on to study pharmacy in Durham and York.
After working for a while for a wholesale druggist, Walker returned to his home town in In , aged 38, he opened his own chemist and druggist business at 59 High Street. Unlike most pharmacists, he worked not only with the natural materia medica but also introduced some chemical substances. It is said that he was a merry fellow whose sunny smile sent patients away feeling much better even before they took his physic. When not working in his shop, Walker experimented with chemicals in an attempt to find a means of obtaining fire easily.
A number of chemical mixtures were known that would ignite suddenly, but they would burn away before the flame could be transmitted to a slow-burning item such as a wooden spill.
This technique however never morphed into something that is usable today. Hennig Brandt was the first chemist he called himself alchemist who discovered properties of Phosphorus in By discovering this substance and recording its properties, he enabled future scientists to implement it in their projects and tests.
Brandt himself was disappointed with the discovery of phosphorus and he did not pursue its development, whishing instead to find the secret of transmuting various metals into gold. Young Parisian Jean Chancel however was very interested into discovering easy to produce and safe to use wooden match.
His method of causing violent chemical reaction that produced the fire consistent of dipping the wooden stick which was coated with mixture potassium chlorate, sulfur, sugar, and rubber into asbestos bottle filled with sulfuric acid. Even though his dangerous and toxic invention did not found much commercial use, it opened door for other inventors to step up and try to find more chemical friendly solution to the problem of fire matches.
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