EVOLUTIONARY CHANGES IN THE CLAY TOBACCO-PIPE
19
have been an alternative to the single 4" bowl already mentioned,
for communal smoking in working-men's clubs: this construction
avoided the need for special 'large-bowl' moulds, the cost of which
would have been a consideration in a very small pipe-factory.
COLOURED CLAY PIPES
While most unglazed clay pipes were of the dull white colour
associated with pipe-clay when new, they acquired a pleasant
amber tint as a result of prolonged smoking. Unfortunately, this
degenerated into a dirty brown with still further smoking and
soaking in nicotine-stained juice : iron cradles are sometimes found
into which used clay-pipes were stacked and put into the fire to
be burnt clean again. When clean, they were of course restored
to their uninteresting pipe-clay colour.
Attempts were therefore made to produce unglazed clay pipes
in more attractive tints which would stand 'firing' when the pipes
needed to be cleaned. The first choice was the amber colour
which old favourite pipes achieved by prolonged use and CROP
of London succeeded in producing this. The family of Crop made
pipes from about 1850 to 1910, giving some of their new pipes the
mellow appearance of an old 'churchwarden'. When the last Crop
(C. CROP) retired in about 1910, he destroyed all the old family
pipe-moulds, and the secret of his pipe-colouring died with him
(see fig. 8 (b)), facing page 27.
Another attempt to relieve the drab monotony of pipeclay was
the black pipe made by J. HARRISON in an old shed or barn
behind the former "Gipsy" public-house at Highgate, London.
Although Harrison is commonly believed to have used graphite to
produce the 'black-lead' finish, it is quite clear that this would
be a most unsuitable material to mix with pipeclay and, moreover,
would not stand repeated firings: it is almost certain that
manganese dioxide was his black colouring, but none of his pipes
seems now to be available for chemical analysis. Black pipes of
seventeenth century date have been reported from time to time:
when thoroughly investigated, these usually turn out to be cases
of black colouration due to the soil or water in which they have
been lying since they were discarded, rather than a deliberate
attempt to make coloured pipes for use.
It should be emphasised that the unusual forms of pipes
described on pp. 15-19 are indeed unusual, and rarely to be found
in excavations.