The Social History of Smoking

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 Athenæum, 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