The History Of Tobacco In London

The history of tobacco in London started with Sir Francis Drake who first brought tobacco to English shores from the New World in 1573. Even then, British sailors had previously obtained tobacco, either for chewing or smoking, from fellow Spanish and Portuguese sailors.

Tobacco Dock, where tonnes of tobacco was stored during the 19th century. The element that Drake discovered was a method of curing the tobacco so it could be stored, transported and was affordable. The East India Company’s formation saw tobacco (plus many other exotic items) becoming more widely available. Soon, the exchequer was enjoying considerable revenues from taxing the huge increase in the popularity of smoking. Due to the high cost, the dried leaves were largely smoked in small clay pipes, broken examples of which are regularly still found by mudlarks along the banks of the Thames.

Incredibly, pipe-making takes place in London today. Alfred Dunhill (inventor of the windshield pipe, which stopped ash blowing in your face while pootering along in your motor car) opened his tobacco shop in 1907 in London’s Duke Street. Unsatisfied with the quality of the pipes he was buying in, Dunhill set up a workshop close to Duke Street in 1910. That workshop recently moved out to Walthamstow.

In 1619, to maintain tight control over excise, King James I ordered that all tobacco must enter the country via London and that pipes should only be made by a group of pipe makers based in Westminster, to whom he granted a Royal Charter. This first group of pipe-makers was reincorporated by Charles I in 1634 under the name of the Tobacco-pipe Makers of London and Westminster and England and Wales, which today is The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers & Tobacco Blenders.

The only remining tobacco roll sign was in New Cross, which, according to George Apperson’s The Social History of Smoking “was one of the commonest of early tobacconists’ signs, and was in constant use for a couple of centuries”. The building has now been demolished to make way for a new hotel, but that a specification of the planning permission is that the tobacco roll is reinstated.

Cigars in England can be traced back to 1814, when officers returned from the Peninsular War with cigars gifted by their fellow Spanish officers. The officer’s messes and gentleman’s clubs of London (image of the Reform Club smoking room) started to seek out fine examples of the smoke, made with tobacco from Cuba.

Then, in the early 19th century a new type of coffee house started to appear. Cigar divans, as they were known, were coffee houses which catered for tobacco smokers. The venues featured musicians and poets and were wildly successful and very fashionable to be seen in. The original London divan was thought to have been Mr Gliddon’s Cigar Divan (image below), opening at 42 King Street on 8 February, 1825 by Anne Gliddon. The idea had come from Gliddon’s brother who had travelled extensively in the East. The salon, it’s said was hung “like an eastern tent, the drapery festooned around you…”.

Mr Gliddon’s Cigar Divan, King Street, Covent Garden

What is now Simpson’s in the Strand first opened in 1828 as a chess club and coffee house — The Grand Cigar Divan. It soon became known as the “home of chess”, attracting such chess luminaries as Howard Staunton the first English world chess champion through its doors. Today the main restaurant is called The Grand Divan (image below of the Grand Divan).

Of course, many Londoners prefer a cigarette — a habit that became fashionable following the outbreak of World War I. Undoubtedly the comeliest building to produce cigarettes in the city, was the Egyptian-inspired Carreras Cigarette Factory in Mornington Crescent. It continued churning out cigarettes until 1959 (image of factory).

London has seen its fair share of celebrity smokers. The tobacco store of Robert Lewis first opened its doors in St James’s Street in 1787. It can claim many famous customers including Sir Winston Churchill, whose ledger and chair are still to be seen in the store, Oscar Wilde and many members of royal families from the UK and further afield. In September 1992 the business was acquired by the Dublin-based tobacconist James J Fox and the store has now traded in all forms of tobacco for over 225 years. What is reputed to be England’s oldest pipe maker Inderwicks (pipe poster from 1850’s below) was founded in 1797 and could be found at 45 Carnaby Street. In more recent years Inderwicks had a shop on Bear Street which in the 1990s became part of the Bear and Staff pub.

Today, the number of London cigar stores and cigar terraces has grown markedly since the UK smoking ban in July 2007, and there are plenty of places to enjoy a cigar in London (image of Boisdale of Belgravia below).