The Social History of Smoking

The Social History of Smoking

Project Gutenberg's The Social History of Smoking, by G. L. Apperson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Social History of Smoking
Author: G. L. Apperson
Release Date: April 1, 2006 [EBook #18096]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF SMOKING ***

Produced by David Newman, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

* * * * *
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | Greek has been transliterated and marked with + marks | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *

THE
SOCIAL HISTORY
OF SMOKING

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
BYGONE LONDON LIFE

THE
SOCIAL HISTORY
OF SMOKING
BY G.L. APPERSON, I.S.O.

LONDON MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

First published 1914
PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON

TO
J.H.M. AND R.W.B.
GOOD FRIENDS AND
GOOD SMOKERS
BOTH

PREFACE
This is the first attempt to write the history of smoking in this country from the social point of view. There have been many books written about tobacco--F.W. Fairholt's "History of Tobacco," 1859, and the "Tobacco" (1857) of Andrew Steinmetz, are still valuable authorities--but hitherto no one has told the story of the fluctuations of fashion in respect of the practice of smoking.
Much that is fully and well treated in such a work as Fairholt's "History" is ignored in the following pages. I have tried to confine myself strictly to the changes in the attitude of society towards smoking, and to such historical and social sidelights as serve to illuminate that theme.
The tobacco-pipe was popular among every section of society in this country in an amazingly short space of time after smoking was first practised for pleasure, and retained its ascendancy for no inconsiderable period. Signs of decline are to be observed during the latter part of the seventeenth century; and in the course of its successor smoking fell more and more under the ban of fashion. Early in the nineteenth century tobacco-smoking had reached its nadir from the social point of view. Then came the introduction of the cigar and the revival of smoking in the circles from which it had long been almost entirely absent. The practice was hedged about and obstructed by a host of restrictions and conventions, but as the nineteenth century advanced the triumphant progress of tobacco became more and more marked. The introduction of the cigarette completed what the cigar had begun; barriers and prejudices crumbled and disappeared with increasing rapidity; until at the present day tobacco-smoking in England--by pipe or cigar or cigarette--is more general, more continuous, and more free from conventional restrictions than at any period since the early days of its triumph in the first decades of the seventeenth century.
The tracing and recording of this social history of the smoking-habit, touching as it does so many interesting points and details of domestic manners and customs, has been a task of peculiar pleasure. To me it has been a labour of love; but no one can be more conscious of the many imperfections of these pages than I am.
I should like to add that I am indebted to Mr. Vernon Rendall, editor of The Athen?um, for a number of valuable references and suggestions.
G.L.A.
HAYWARDS HEATH. September 1914.

CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE FIRST PIPES OF TOBACCO SMOKED IN ENGLAND 11
II. TOBACCO TRIUMPHANT: SMOKING FASHIONABLE AND UNIVERSAL 25
III. TOBACCO TRIUMPHANT (continued): SELLERS OF TOBACCO AND PROFESSORS OF THE ART OF SMOKING 39
IV. CAVALIER AND ROUNDHEAD SMOKERS 57
V. SMOKING IN THE RESTORATION ERA 69
VI. SMOKING UNDER KING WILLIAM III AND QUEEN ANNE 83
VII. SMOKING UNFASHIONABLE: EARLY GEORGIAN DAYS 99
VIII. SMOKING UNFASHIONABLE (continued): LATER GEORGIAN DAYS 119
IX. SIGNS OF REVIVAL 137
X. EARLY VICTORIAN DAYS 155
XI. LATER VICTORIAN DAYS 179
XII. SMOKING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 193
XIII. SMOKING BY WOMEN 205
XIV. SMOKING IN CHURCH 225
XV. TOBACCONISTS' SIGNS 235
INDEX 251

I
THE FIRST PIPES OF TOBACCO SMOKED IN ENGLAND
Before the wine of sunny Rhine, or even Madam Clicquot's, Let all men praise, with loud hurras, this panacea of Nicot's. The debt confess, though none the less they love the grape and barley, Which Frenchmen owe to good Nicot, and Englishmen to Raleigh.
DEAN HOLE.
There is little doubt that the smoke of herbs and leaves of various kinds was inhaled in this country, and in Europe generally, long before tobacco was ever heard of on this side the Atlantic. But whatever smoking of this kind took place was medicinal and not social. Many instances have been recorded of the finding of pipes resembling those used for tobacco-smoking in Elizabethan times, in positions and in circumstances which would seem to point