14. Clay Tobacco Pipes
Manufactured
in Dartford
Following the introduction of
tobacco into England at the end of the 16th century, numerous people
were to set themselves up in business producing the clay tobacco pipes
required to enjoy the new habit of smoking.
The first local reference to a
pipemaker is in 1670 when Thomas Harris was noted by Dartford’s
churchwardens as being a donor to a fund set up for the ‘redemption of
slaves in Turkey’. William Jefferies is next to he mentioned, this
time on his burial recorded in the Parish Registers on the 2nd January
1710. Five years later, William Danbey is believed to have worked as a
pipemaker in Dartford although no reference to him has as yet been found
locally. In 1792, a document dated 28th December, mentions a Joseph
Dames as being a pipemaker on the north side of Spital Street near its
junction with Hythe Street. It is not however, until the 19th century
that more information becomes available as to the full extent of the
pipe industry in the town. This information was obtained from various
sources including census returns and local directories covering a period
from 1832 to 1892. The production was based at 15 & 17 Overy Street,
with a sales outlet on East Hill. Thomas Pascall, a Chatham man, was
first to use the premises from 1832 until 1851. He was followed by
Charles Yonwin who is more commonly connected with Gravesend as a
pipemaker but appears in the census taken in Dartford in
1861. In 1862, the business was
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taken over by William Sandy of Bromley.
He is listed in directories until 1874 as a pipemaker as well as
operating as an agent for Whittington Life Insurance. The last pipemaker
to work in Dartford was James Rumley who had originally worked as an
apprentice to Thomas Pascall. He had continued with Pascall’s
successors until becoming qualified in his own right. His name appears
in directories of 1879 and continues until 1892. It was about this time
that the popularity of the briar pipe and the cigarette were to
challenge that of the clay pipe. This change in smoking habits was to be
so complete that many smaller pipe making establishments such as that in
Dartford went out of business.
Clay pipes are now an important means
of dating layers on archaeological sites from the late 16th century.
This has been made possible largely by the efforts of Adrian Oswald who
has developed a dating sequence based on the fact that the shape of the
clay pipe evolved during their successive centuries of use. We are
therefore now able to date a clay pipe within twenty years, from its
size and shape. This means that an excavated layer on a site of this
period can now be dated closely even in the absence of other datable
material such as pottery and coins.
The excavations carried out by the
Group including that at the ‘Pipe House’, Overy Street have produced
not only an almost complete sequence showing the clay pipe’s
developments but also the products of a once thriving industry in
Dartford. |