DET DANSKE TÆNDSTIKMUSEUM HIS

1858 - 1875
Falkoner Alle 36 / Nikolajvej 2 - 6, Frederiksberg

In 1856 Anders Sørensen bought a small factory in Falconer Alle 36 , where he fabricated concrete rings and other castings and a year later began to manufacture pencils. Like so many others before and since Sørensen had also seen the combination of pencil manufacturing and match stick fabrication, so at the end of 1857 he began his match stick factory under the name A. Sørensen & Co.

In 1865 Sørensen met H. E. Gosch, there was salesman for the Ludvig Hintze´s match stick factory which had previously been located in Schleswig , but now had been moved to Christianshavn, where it had some teething problems . After Sørensen had taken over Hintze´s factory in Christianshavn , he moved all the engines to the new build factory buildings in Frederiksberg in September 1866. At the same time Gosch had been employed as a salesman in the company.

In the next years Sørensen constantly built and increased production .

Since the health authorities had been aware of several cases of phosphorus poisoning in Sørensen, he got a number of strict injunction in August 1869. with a particularly focus on workers ' dining on the premises and the workers' hygiene while dipping the matches in the phosphorus solution.

On the 6th of March 1870 a major fire broke out at the factory , where a large part of the factory building burned down and the fire brigade only could concentrate on saving the surrounding buildings . Sorensen had then to carry out a major reconstruction , but within the next months two confirmed a further three fires appeared, however, which the employees managed to extinguish before the fire department got there.

At the same time prefect Simony received an anonymous letter about the miserable working conditions at Sørensen´s factory and the many cases of phosphornecrosis . This was the beginning of a major study of conditions in the industry and resulted subsequently in the well know Match Law. A written survey of all sites showed that the problem was almost entirely at Sørensen where they had registered 9 cases , of which 2 had been ending with the death .

After the Match Law was adopted in 1874 Sorensen had , as many others, to rebuild his plant matching the new demands, but this had drained his capital and he also had gotten a bad reputation. Therefor he tried to " start fresh " by changing the factory to Frederiksberg Aktie Tændstikfabrik , where he was to be director the next 5 years and he also announce that Gosch wouldcontinue as a salesman and bookkeeper in the company during the same period .

But the sale of shares faltered and as the idea had to be dropped , Gosch felt free of the agreement and then started for himself on the island of Amager.

It has previously been written that the reason why Gosch left Sørensen was a salary issue, but we have not found anything about this in the context of research for our book , but there is a coincidence between Sørensen's failed attempts with the formation of public limited liability company and Gosch starting his Phoenix-factory .

In an attempt to improve his product and to try to give it a fresh start , Sørensen´s wife came on the idea to use Tordenskjold as a factory mark on the labels , as a clear indication of from where the match sticks came .

But Sørensen was beginning to lose his enthusiasm and since this came to a knowledge for Gosch and his new partner, Oscar Davidsen out on Amager , they offered , along with some financiers ( merchant Philip W. Heymann , his brother- merchant Mentheim Levin Bramson and son-in-law merchant Jacob Carl Emil Michaelsen ) as guarantors to take over the factory.

The agreement came into being and "A. Sørensen , Louis Hintzes Eftf " was now taken over by " H. E. Gosch & Co." for the sum of approx. 280,000 kroner distributed with DKK 190,000 for buildings and 90,000 kroner for inventory , accounts receivable , etc.

Sørensen, who then had to accept no longer to deal with manufacturing and selling of matches , continued for some years in a building on Nikolajvej 11 where he manufactured burial wreaths and firelighters .