EVOLUTIONARY CHANGES IN THE CLAY TOBACCO-PIPE
17
It seems likely that these simple marks on the flat base of the
foot of an early pipe indicate that it was made at a pottery
already long-established, but simple marks occur on much later
pipes and by themselves, are no indicators of antiquity. When
special clay-pipe factories started to turn out thousands of pipes
in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, it became usual to
mark the underside of the bowl or foot with initials, often of the
maker, more rarely of the publican or tobacconist who sold, or
gave the pipes to his customers. Up to about 1640, these initials
also were incuse, like the marks which preceded, or sometimes
accompanied them; thereafter, more often they were moulded in
relief or embossed, although the incuse form continued in the West
Country to the end of the seventeenth century. The relief form
seems to have originated in London about 163016, and diffused
from that centre with the usual delay of a decade or so. After the
Restoration in 1660, it became the fashion to mark the sides of the
foot or spur with initials, instead of the base, and this custom
persisted well into the eighteenth century. For precise definition
of the terms used in describing parts of a clay-pipe, see fig. 5,
page 22.
INITIALS ON PIPES AND HOW TO READ THEM
It has been discovered that when two initials are present, one
on each side of the foot or bowl, if the pipe be held with the
bowl away from the reader (as if he were smoking it), the initial
on the reader's RIGHT represents the surname, that on the LEFT,
the Christian name. This convention appears to have been com-
monly followed, astonishing though it be that such a standardisa-
tion should have been achieved throughout the country. The
custom of initialling pipes as a mark of manufacture, died out in
the eighteenth century, after over a hundred years of use; its re-
appearance in the nineteenth century is in the nature of a
conscious revival, and was never general.
OTHER DEVICES AND MARKS
On some other early pipes, the maker's name is concealed in
the form of a 'rebus', the name of the thing pictured being also
the maker's name, or sounding like it. Such a rebus is moulded
on the front of the bowl and sometimes on the flat base of the
foot as well. An example of this is the GAUNTLETT pipe, many
thousands of which must have been made in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries by the pipe-making family of Gauntlett. The
trademark on the bowl was a shield bearing a gauntlet (thumb
extended to the right) and below the shield, in one large example
with a 4" bowl, the initials G B and date 1698. On the base of
the foot of this particular pipe is a circle of dots enclosing a
miniature of the shield and gauntlet, of course without date or
initials7. It is interesting to observe that the surname initial is
to the left, when facing the reader, but also follows the convention
detailed above.