Figs. 666 to 676.—Old Broseley Clay Pipes.
The long-bowled pipes continued in use to the middle of last century, and representations of them may be found on engravings of the period, thus showing that they gradually merged from the bulbous into the elongated form of the time of William III., and so passed on to the wide-mouthed shape of the present day. The heel or spur also changed from the flat form—made to rest the pipe upon during or after use—to the long pointed one now so common, and which took its rise probably from the Dutch. It must be remembered, however, that the Dutch were originally indebted to England for the introduction of pipe-making into that country.
Usually the old pipes were perfectly plain, with the general exception of a milled border, impressed by hand, not in the mould, running round the mouth. It is also worthy of remark, that the bowls of many of the older pipes are scraped into form after having been moulded. Sometimes ornamented examples are met with, but they are of extremely rare occurrence. Mr. Croker had one which he considered to have been of foreign make, but which I think there is little doubt is of English manufacture: and the one in my own possession (Fig. [646]) presents some very interesting features; in form it closely resembles one of the examples of James I. and Charles I., and I have no doubt, from the form of the letters, that I am right in appropriating it to that period.
It is not very easy to localise pipes, for but little is known of places where they were made, and the manufacture was of course of so small an extent that it is difficult to trace it. In November, 1601, Mr. Secretary Cecil alludes, in a speech, to a then existing patent of monopoly enjoyed by tobacco-pipe makers; and in 1619 the craft of pipemakers were incorporated, their privileges, according to Stowe, extending through the cities of London and Westminster, the kingdom of England, and dominion of Wales. They were governed by a master, four wardens, and about twenty-four assistants. These privileges were confirmed by subsequent monarchs. At Derby several generations of pipemakers have uninterruptedly carried on business, and it was in one of these ovens that the first pieces of Derby china were fired. The pipes made at Winchester were, in Ben Jonson’s time, great favourites; they were said to be the best then made, and far superior to those of Vauxhall and other places. In the neighbourhood of Bath, pipes were apparently made in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the makers’ names being Thomas Hunt, Henry Putley, Rich. Greenland, Rich. Tyler, and Jeffry Hunt; and some of the examples bear a shield with a branch of the tobacco-plant. At Lichfield they were made to a large extent, as also at Newcastle-under-Lyme, and indeed they were produced in most parts of the country.
From the smallness of size of these early pipes has, I presume, arisen their common name of “Fairy Pipes,” varied sometimes into “Elfin Pipes,” “Mab Pipes,” “Danes Pipes,” etc. They are also sometimes called “Celtic” and “Old Man’s Pipes,” and I have heard them designated by the characteristic name of “Carls Pipes,” a name indicative of a belief in their ancient origin.[87] In Ireland, they are believed to have belonged to the Cluricanes, a kind of wild, mischievous fairy-demon, and when found are at once broken up by the superstitious “pisantry.” In England, they are said to have belonged to the fairies or “old men,” but, unlike their Irish brethren, our peasantry usually preserve them, and in some districts believe that a certain amount of good luck attends their possession. I have known one of these pipes carried about the person for years, and have heard its owner—a Peak-man—declare in his native dialect, on being asked to part with it, “Nay, a’d part wi’ a towth sowner!” A quantity of these “fairy pipes” were found in the parish of Old Swinford, Worcestershire, some few years ago, “and the country folks there had a tradition that it was a favourite spot for the resort of Queen Mab and her court, and that among other appendages of royalty was a fairy-pipe manufactory, of which these were the remains.”
Broseley has been so long famous for its tobacco-pipes, that a “Broseley” is a term familiar to smokers all over the world. That this locality should have been chosen as the place par excellence for their manufacture, is to be accounted for by the excellent clay of the district.
The white pottery found at Wroxeter is made of clay from the Severn Valley, and this shows that the Broseley or other clays were worked at a very early period of our history. The Shirlot clay, of which a few pipes were made at Shirlot and Much-Wenlock, is of a coarse texture, and very inferior to the Devon pipeclay, of which most are now made. This might lead us to suppose that the earliest manufacturers of pipes at first used the clay found in the neighbourhood, but discarded it for the purer clays which they obtained from Devonshire; but I feel assured the Shirlot and Wenlock pipes are not of very ancient date. In the late Mr. Thursfield’s collection were many with marks on the spur. Some of these marks exhibit the maker’s name in full, some abbreviated, others initials only, and one has a gauntlet on the bowl, with S. D. (probably the initials of Samuel Decon, who was alive in 1729) on the spur; three bowls alone only bear dates, viz., Richard Legg, 1687; John Legg, 1687; and John Legg, 1696. These three are engraved on page 293. “I have carefully examined the Broseley parish register,” Mr. Thursfield informed me, “which dates back as early as 1572, and find in 1575, 17th Elizabeth (ten years before Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco), that Richard Legg had a daughter baptized. I therefore consider him to be the father of Broseley pipemakers, for even at the present day some of his descendants follow the trade in this place—from various causes no longer as masters—and still bear the family names of Richard and John Legg. A stone slab let into the front of a substantial cottage, with the words ‘Richard Legg built this, 1716,’ testifies to the well-to-do position held by the family in the early part of the eighteenth century.” The name of Ben Legg also occurs on a pipe found in Worcestershire. The names of the pipemakers at Broseley, judging from the examples I have seen, appear to commence first as follows:—Clarke in 1647, Roden in 1681, Legg 1575, Darbey 1700, Decon 1608, Evans 1615, Hughes 1641, Hartshorne 1620, James 1600, Jones 1590, Price 1608, Partridge 1718, Overton 1700, Smith 1709, Shaw 1630, Wilksone 1733, and Ward 1700. Other names (Brown, Bradley, Dry, Hart, Harper, Overley, and Roberts, for instance) occur as pipemakers here in the olden time.
More than a hundred years ago, the pipemakers began to stamp their names and residences on the stems of the pipes instead of the spurs, the stems being, in many instances, 16 or 18 inches or more in length. They likewise made a small twist or bead mid stem, at such a length from the bowl, that when held between the fingers at that spot, the pipe was balanced.
A pipe-maker, named Noah Roden, brought the long pipes to great perfection, and supplied most of the London clubs and coffee-houses of that day; he died about 1829, and his business was carried on by the late William Southorn, who made great strides in improving the manufacture, and whose eldest son is now carrying on the famed business of maker of the patent and genuine “Real Broseleys.”