STRANGE BUT TRUE

Spontaneous combustion

One of the more bizarre beliefs in Victorian England was the possibility of spontaneous combustion in which a person suddenly caught fire and was enveloped in flames. This was the stuff of fiction but perpetuated as fact by writers of the time, notably the novelist Charles Dickens who describes such an incident in Bleak House (1853) when the rag and bone dealer Krook is alone in his shop at night, his clothes saturated with spirits, when he burned to death, leaving what seemed to be “the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes”.

Dickens was at great pains to explain that he had based the incident on real life events, claiming to have known dozens of documented examples of such deaths, and the theory has persisted ever since although no one has ever fully explained how a body can catch fire without being ignited.

Fascinating though these examples are, few would bear close scientific scrutiny and as rational thought insists that there is an explanation for all things that must be so in these cases. It was therefore with some surprise that during my researches I stumbled across a small news item in the Stamford Mercury published on Friday 15th March 1844 which read as follows:

“A gentleman at Billingborough, near Bourne, was a few days ago considerably alarmed, and a little hurt personally, owing to his putting some lucifer matches into his waistcoat pocket. Friction with some silver which he happened also to have there produced combustion and his waistcoat and shirt were a good deal burnt.”

A lucifer was an early match made of a piece of wood and an inflammable substance which was lit by friction with a rough surface. It made its appearance in the early 19th century but there were problems in that they had an unsteady flame and an unpleasant odour and could easily ignite explosively, sometimes throwing sparks a considerable distance. As a result, they were eventually replaced by safety matches which were less dangerous to carry although their use persisted for many years.

Perhaps the incident involving the Billingborough gentleman was an example of how they could be ignited when being carried about the person although in this case he was lucky to escape serious injury but it might well explain the Victorian phenomenon of spontaneous combustion.

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