Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 1: But certainly pipes were smoked in England before 1584. The plant was introduced into Europe, as we have seen, about 1560, and it was under cultivation in England by 1570. In the 1631 edition of Stow's "Chronicles" it is stated that tobacco was "first brought and made known by Sir John Hawkins, about the year 1565, but not used by Englishmen in many years after." There is only one reference to tobacco in Hawkins's description of his travels. In the account of his second voyage (1564-65) he says: "The Floridians when they travel have a kinde of herbe dryed, which with a cane, and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together do smoke thoro the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five days without meat or drinke." smoking was thus certainly known to Hawkins in 1565, but much reliance cannot be placed on the statement in the Stow of 1631 that he first made known the practice in this country, because that statement appears in no earlier edition of the "Chronicles." Moreover, as opposed to the allegation that tobacco was "not used by Englishmen in many years after" 1565, there is the remark by William Harrison, in his "Chronologie," 1588, that in 1573 "the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herbe called Tobacco, by an instrument formed like a little ladell, whereby it passeth from the mouth into the head and stomach, is gretlie taken up and used in England." The "little ladell" describes the early form of the tobacco-pipe, with small and very shallow bowl.
From Chapter 7: The London clergy seem to have smoked at one time as a matter of course at their gatherings at Sion College, their headquarters. An entry in the records under date February 14, 1682, relating to a Court Meeting, runs: "Paid Maddocks [the Messenger] for Attendinge and Pipes 6d." How long pipes continued to be concomitants of the meetings of the College's General Court I cannot say; but smoking and the annual dinners were long associated. At the anniversary feast in 1743 there were two tables to provide for, the total number of guests being about thirty, and two "corses" to each. The cost of the food, as Canon Pearce tells us in his excellent and entertaining book on the College and its Library, was £19 15 s., or rather more than 13 s. a head. The bill for wines and tobacco amounted to five guineas, or about 3 s. 6 d. a head, and for this modest sum the thirty convives enjoyed eleven gallons of "Red Oporto," one of "White Lisbon," and three of "Mountain," to the accompaniment of two pounds of tobacco (at 3 s. 4 d. the pound) smoked in "half a groce of pipes" (at 1 s.).
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