After the introduction of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 16th century, and prior to the growth of the popularity of cigarettes during the First World War (the first cigarette-making machine was invented in 1881), pipes were the most common means of using tobacco in England.
Women as well as men – of all social classes – used to smoke pipes. By the 18th century, however, tobacco use and smoking in public by women started to be frowned upon, and even seen to be an indicator of low morals. Female pipe smoking began to be limited, in the main, to working class women.
People’s pipes tended to be made of clay. Clay pipe-making is believed to have started in London and then to have spread across the country. Most towns and even some villages eventually had their own resident pipe maker. Might Eynsham have had one, too?
Pipes were embellished with all manner of designs, from flora and fauna to sports and family crests. Our example – kindly donated by the family of the late Bryan Duffield – is decorated with a shoe kicking a ball (where the stem meets the pipe bowl). Is it a woman’s shoe or a man’s? We can’t quite tell!