12
THE CLAY TOBACCO-PIPE IN BRITAIN
PIPE-CLAY
It may be of interest to enquire how it was that fine kaolin,
which we now call 'pipe-clay' came so readily to hand. Potters
had long known the value of a fine white clay in making 'slipware'
and the slip, or suspension of kaolin in water or beer, had already
been used in the moulding of small figurines, in addition to its
use throughout the later Middle Ages for decoration of pottery.
Therefore, the same material came naturally to the hand of a
potter who set himself to make a comfortable smoking-pipe;
this may well account for the pre-eminence of Shropshire and
Bristol among the earliest pipe-making centres.
ALTERNATIVES TO PIPE-CLAY
Many materials have been used for pipe bowls during the
past three and a half centuries, horn, bone, ivory, stone (steatite),
amber, glass, porcelain, corn-cobs, nut-shells, precious metals, and
in the reign of William III, brass and even iron10, but clay alone
has remained the favourite until ousted in popularity during the
last hundred years by 'briar' wood (actually bruyere).
EARLY PIPE FACTORIES AND THE COMPANY OF PIPE-
MAKERS
Clay-pipes were first made in small batches at already-
established potteries and it was not until the first quarter of the
seventeenth century that tobacco-pipe manufacturers set up
factories especially to meet the growing demand for pipes. The
Company and Craft of Tobacco-pipe Makers was incorporated
on 5th of October, 1619; the Company had a Master, four Wardens
and twenty-four Assistant Wardens, "to be active in London,
Bristol, Selby and Hull". This Charter was confirmed by King
Charles I and again in 1675 by Charles II2. It seems unlikely that
the full powers of the Company ever extended far outside
London16.
FOREIGN COMPETITION
Although it seems clear that the earliest European country to
make and use clay tobacco-pipes was England, it was not many
years before foreign competition had cut prices in this country.
In 1663, we find the Company of Tobacco-pipe Makers, which had
then been established over 40 years, successfully petitioning the
Crown to forbid the exportation of the essential pipe-clay to
Holland, in an endeavour to break this competition. But con-
tinental sources of good pipe-clay existed, and, in 1688, a
Frenchman admitted that "the English invented the pipe of burnt
clay, which we now make and use everywhere"3.
MODERN MANUFACTURE
By the end of the seventeenth century most large towns had
their pipe-makers; Canterbury, Hull, Salisbury, York and Lynn