SAN ISIDRO ALTO

The shape of pipe bowls has changed frequently throughout their history, while the technology required in the manufacture of pipes has not evolved significantly since the basic pattern of production became established in the late sixteenth century. Changes in bowl shape allow the date of pipe

manufacture to be identified with some precision. Bowls frequently show makers’ marks or initials which can add precision to dating and location of manufacture, particularly when used in association with documentary

evidence. In historical archaeology, these features of pipes are often used to date excavation contexts. This is almost certainly the first and sometimes the only interpretative use of clay pipes in archaeological reports and

investigations, as can be seen in an article reporting excavations at Rose Lane, Canterbury (Weekes 2012, especially p251-252). The material culture of pipes can be worked into a dated typology that has widespread potential

46 value in any archaeological site where post-medieval artefacts are

encountered (see Chapter Two for a development of the values of pipe typologies in the archaeology of Kent).

David Higgins was one of the first to put into print a review of some of the other uses of clay pipes in archaeology beyond assisting with dating. He notes their value in “exploring the social status of a particular site or group”; “their potential in marking trade routes”; and their value as indicators of trade between peoples. He noted the potential of well preserved large assemblages for exploring workshop practices. (Higgins 1995, 47-52). Other writers, outside the UK, have looked to find wider interpretations from the analysis of

assemblages of clay tobacco pipes. One example is the work of Georgina L. Fox, who studied the seventeenth century English pipes found at Port Royal, Jamaica (Fox, 2002). Fox looked at the link between tobacco production and the international trade in clay pipes and developed her arguments from a “standard paradigm of a core-peripheral relationship” (Fox 2002, 67). Peter Davey uses Fox’s earlier publication (BAR International Series 809, 1999) to stress the need for care in ascribing sources to pipes. Fox sees Bristol as the major source of pipes found at Port Royal. While not questioning her

argument for a core-periphery relationship, Davey does ask if the dominant source was indeed Bristol and provides some evidence of alternative locations within England (Davey 2009, 181-202).

Lise Loktu’s unpublished MA thesis reports that “attention has almost exclusively been focused on clay pipes as functional artefacts with little attempt to examine them closely in their social contexts”. Loktu is one of the first to present a study of clay pipes permeated with and informed by a

theoretical perspective (Loktu, 2009). Her work was on social differentiation in seventeenth century pipe use in Trondheim; the perspective she adopted was Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Loktu’s study is confined to three specific sites

within Trondheim; my research is wider ranging geographically and encompasses a longer period of time, but it acknowledges a debt to the originality of Loktu’s approach in linking research into clay tobacco pipes with a relevant theoretical perspective.

47 Cochran and Beaudry stress the importance of “foundational studies”

(stressing identification, chronology and typology) before interpretation can begin. They note that “prior to the 1990s, interpretative analyses of ceramics and other artefacts were largely absent from historical archaeology in the UK, and in the Americas tended to focus on a narrow range of issues, namely consumer choice, status and ...ethnicity” (Cochran and Beaudry 2006, 193). Furthermore, they state that more recently historical archaeologists have “combined theories and methods from across the humanities and social sciences” and used postprocessual perspectives. Nonetheless, they refer to the isolation resulting from the specialisation of archaeologists – clay tobacco pipes, textiles, ceramics, etc. (Cochran and Beaudry 2006, 193). An example of one such archaeological investigation from Sandwich Castle, Kent, was published in ArchaeologiaCantiana. The pipes are relegated to sixteen lines in a 25-page report. The report claims that “the clay pipe collection

is...considerable (57 pipe bowls, 416 stem fragments, total 1415 gms)”

(Stewart 2000, 70 with the author’s parenthesis but my emphasis). The pipes are described but no attempt is made at any level of analysis beyond

suggesting a date; there is no reference to the typology used. The makers’ initials are reported without an attempt to identify them by name. The pipes, like the arrowheads and ceramics from Sandwich Castle are not illustrated although they each are given an isolating subheading in the report. It would be much better if such accounts could respond to Cochran and Beaudry’s appeal for a balanced, integrated and interpretative approach to archaeology. First the identification, which should be relatively durable and stable over time (a named typology, once established, is unlikely to undergo radical change). Subsequently comes the interpretation, looking towards the social and cultural identities of producers, users or discarders. This requires judgement with the outcome, hopefully, firmly integrated with the remainder of the report.

Applying a typology does not furnish a full and final statement; it merely

provides one piece of information about the artefact. If classification can never vary or is the end in itself, then the classified artefacts become anonymous and the potential for getting close to the human, the original or almost any other meaning is lost. Loren and Beaudry (2006, 255ff) show the importance of flexibility and openness, especially perhaps when examining any easily

48 classifiable artefact. They demonstrate some of the histories that can be built around thimbles, going far beyond a mere classification. James Delle (1997, 1093) provides another warning that could apply particularly to museums: “methodologically, most archaeologists who examine the material culture of the recent past tend to focus on fetishised artefacts (particularly ceramics) refining chronologies and extending typologies while ignoring the social dynamics which created and gave meaning to those artefacts”.

This study of the workers in the Kent clay tobacco pipe industry is firmly supportive of the second of the two approaches outlined above. As Hicks and Beaudry write, the “sheer diversity and quantities of material that survive, and ...the relative proximity of the material to the present, both...bring distinctive opportunities rather than essential differences” to historical archaeology (Hicks and Beaudry 2006, 3). Pipes were used at a time when literacy was spreading beyond the confines of the church or of the wealthy. Clay pipes were used by rich and poor for over three hundred years in Kent and

throughout the country; they were used by young and old and by members of both genders and in a wide range of social contexts. Any study of the clay pipe industry needs to respond to the popularity of smoking and to the

quantity of pipe debris that remains and look to offer as broad and integrated approach as possible.

The Literature

Having established the relationship between historical archaeology and archaeology more widely defined, and considered some contrasting approaches to writing about clay pipes, the remainder of this chapter will appraise the literature available concerning clay tobacco pipes. The published material relating to clay tobacco pipes addresses many different purposes. The review in this chapter imposes some order on the wide range of

publications available and supplies one or two examples for each. Beginning with work in publications and organisations of national importance, it mentions briefly foreign journals, then explores regional studies and excavation reports before concluding with works that attempt to stimulate wider and popular interest in clay tobacco pipes.

49 The key questions to be asked of this material are what does the literature contribute to our knowledge of the clay tobacco pipe industry and, where possible, what might it add to our understanding of that industry in Kent. Sadly very little writing has taken the Kentish clay tobacco pipe industry as its prime focus, but much written material does offer perspectives and ideas that are relevant to the industry in Kent.

Articles in Academic Journals of National Societies.

These include seminal papers such as that by Adrian Oswald (1960) where the history of the pipemaking industry is traced across the country. Oswald attempts explanation as well as description and adopts a cautious approach. For example, where noting the expansion of the industry in the early

eighteenth century, he says that “much of this may merely be due to more complete records” than in earlier years (Oswald 1960, 44). Oswald was one of the first to present a cogent evolution of the industry, to consider from a base of evidence how the industry had been organised, and to outline the nature of the export trade in pipes. He reviewed pipe bowl shapes and the variety in decoration and marking. Oswald was the first to present a list of known

pipemakers across England. He proposed a typology that recognised regional variation. This typology was to evolve over the next decade, to concentrate on London makers, and was published by David Atkinson and Adrian Oswald in

the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, in 1969. This later study

has had a profound influence on the study of pipes and pipemakers. In it, Atkinson and Oswald rehearse some of the history of pipemaking, including exporting. The detailed analyses of makers’ marks and pipe shape and decoration have proved of great value to archaeologists seeking to explain and date materials in the post-medieval contexts. London makers have had a major impact on the evolution of pipe shapes, especially in the early years and particularly on the makers active in the southeast of England. The typology proposed by Atkinson and Oswald (1969, 177-179) is a significant reference work today (a full discussion of this is provided in Chapter Two). Atkinson and Oswald included an updating of the 1960 list for London pipemakers. Both the 1960 and 1969 lists are arranged alphabetically by surname; it might have been more helpful to have used dates or locations but

50 the key point is that for the first time comprehensive lists of identified makers were made available to archaeology.

Papers such as those mentioned above, published in academic journals, have sought to synthesise and bring order to the work on clay pipes completed over many years by a number of researchers. Others have had a more narrow intent, for example Oswald’s paper exploring some possible links between potters and pipemakers (Oswald, 1970).

An especially important national publication has been Post-Medieval

Archaeology (the Journal of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology). This

is the only national society which focuses on the period of clay tobacco pipes and so it has published a number of articles on aspects of pipemaking. Some are highly specialised, for example the exploration of the physical properties of the clays used in pipes in order to identify the source of the clay used in batches of pipes made at Pipe Aston, Herefordshire (Peacey and Vince, 2003). Others have developed studies of the use of pipes abroad, as with Natascha Mehler’s work on the economic impact of pipes in Bavaria (Mehler 2009), and with Pieter Floore and Ranjith Jayasena’s use of pipe finds to contribute to a widely based study of the development of European influence in Mauritius (Floore and Jayasena, 2010). A few articles focus on aspects of British pipes, for example, David Higgins’ analysis of early Suffolk pipes from Landguard Fort (Higgins 2008, further considered below).

British Archaeological Reports

The most important and substantial academic studies relating to clay tobacco pipes have been published in a British Archaeological Reports (BAR) series entitled “The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe”. Many are edited

volumes under the general editorship of Peter Davey. They are listed in Table 3, page 232.

The series was preceded by a single volume published as number 14 in the BAR British Series: “Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist” by Adrian Oswald. Peter Davey wrote in his editorial contribution to the first book in the BAR series The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe, that “the publication of

51

Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist in 1975 has proved to be a milestone in pipe

studies” (Davey 1979, 1). Oswald saw this book as a statement of the current knowledge of the pipe: “this book is an attempt to bring together the essential conclusions of this research (on clay pipes) under one cover and this is the product of many minds” (Oswald 1975, 1). Oswald wanted his book to

become “a practical workhorse to the archaeologist in the field” (1975, 1). He recognised that much work remained to be done.

Oswald covers the introduction of tobacco and the organisation of the pipe industry and explains details of pipe manufacture. Although Oswald

acknowledges the existence of earlier attempts at a typology, his presentation of a “simplified general typology” was one of the first to be widely adopted for use in the field wherever English pipe debris has been found (Oswald, 1975, 37-41). Although his typology was ‘general’, he goes to some pains to indicate regional variations in bowl form and discusses makers’ marks, providing many illustrations. There is a briefer section on decoration and on internal and international trade in pipes. He produces maps to show the distribution of pipes of a variety of types, dates and sources; remarkably few of these are shown to be found in Kent. The second half of the book is filled with a list of the known makers sorted by county and by initials. Probably this includes some repetition where pipemakers moved between counties, e.g. William Birchall of Rotherhithe, London, in 1836 and of Canterbury, Kent, in 1845. Nonetheless, this list, used with the general typology, has proved of enormous value in dating archaeological contexts.

Oswald’s Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist is a book of illustration and information; it does not seek to explain but rather aims to share insights. There are criticisms that can be made: the book is not well paginated and at times pages of diagrams, pictures and their accompanying notes interrupt the reading of the main text. The sources given for the pipemakers are

abbreviated to the point of uselessness in places (for example a ‘D’ alongside a maker’s name indicates that the name has come from a Directory but

neither the publication date nor name of the Directory is supplied). Nonetheless, in terms of making available the then current state of

52 knowledge, and in creating a general typology, this book has been the most significant single publication to date, albeit now in need of some updating.

In the editorial to the first book in the BAR Series, Peter Davey listed the kinds of publication he anticipated: “regional surveys; methodological studies;

technical investigations; and the presentation of closed and independent groups from excavations” (Davey 1979, 1). The early volumes contained a variety of short and longer chapters which met the criteria specified, however there was little significant mention of pipe-making in Kent. In the tenth volume (on Scotland), Davey’s editorial noted that “a lot has still to be learned about the changing socio-economic roles of the pipemakers and of their trading mechanisms and networks” (Davey 1987, 1). This statement reflected the fact that the BAR volumes presented useful data with some explanation, but the coverage was patchy and lacked the cohesion and rationale that the adoption or imposition of a common theoretical stance might have stimulated.

Sometimes the authors provide opinions without adequate support. Thus Colin Tatman explains the limited quantity of published material on pipes in this manner with his first sentence: “as one of the lowly occupations of London, clay tobacco pipe making has attracted little study in previous centuries” (Tatman 1994, 1). The statement about lowliness is not tied to dates or precise location, nor is the rationale provided. A similar view is presented in his Conclusion (number 7, page 92). Nonetheless, Tatman presents a wealth of interesting information about the Southwark and

Newington pipemakers. This is a regional study that fully meets Davey’s first criteria for a BAR publication but it is not altogether clear that his conclusions can inform pipe studies conducted outside London.

The most recent contribution to the BAR British Series is from Susie White (2004). White is writing of regionalism and trade and, at the start of her book, makes clear her understanding of both of these key terms. White (2004, 5) sets out her five research questions:

“ 1. Is it possible to define a style of pipe that is typical of a given study area?

2. Is it possible to define products of individual centres within a given study area?

53 3. Can trading dynamics of production centres within a given study area

be assessed?

4. Can the influence of external production centres be assessed? 5. If any patterns can be identified in 1 – 4 above, to what extent can

they be explained from the historic record?”

White concludes by showing how her research has answered these

questions. She presents the recording systems for pipes and for the stamps that some pipes carry. White has trialed this system and demonstrates its potential for use at other archaeological sites where a substantial assemblage of pipes is encountered. Her book reveals the depth of study she completed and she has created a number of very substantial databases.

White’s work is ten years old. More recent studies in historical archaeology, none of which has a focus on clay tobacco pipes, are tending to set the research within a theoretical framework or to make greater reference to the theories the researchers have found relevant (for example the Liverpool PhD thesis by Annie Gray, [2009]). White’s study does refer to Renfrew and Bahn

(Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, 1994) and to some theories

specifically relating to pipes (e.g. regarding the use of pipe bore diameters in dating fragments) but she does not suggest any theoretical approach that might pervade her research.

It should be recorded that eight volumes in the BAR Series ‘The Archaeology

of the Clay Tobacco Pipe’ listed inTable 3, page 232, are from the

International rather than the British Series. Four refer to America, two to Europe, and one each to Jamaica and to Marseille.

Newsletters of the Society for Clay Pipe Research (SCPR)

The Society for Clay Pipe Research, founded in 1983, has produced a regular

Newsletter since 1984. The contents of editions over ten recent years have

been analysed and tabulated (see Table 4, page 233). What is clear is that

the Newsletter regularly reports studies of assemblages of pipes from

excavations; it makes full use of documentary sources and attempts to

54 family groups. This journal is wide-ranging in its contents, frequently covering news from beyond the UK and offering readers research reports on a great variety of pipe-related matters. Unfortunately, Kent rarely features in the

Newsletter; there has been only one longer item on Kent beyond the London

fringe in the period covered in Table 4. However, there have been many briefer references to Kent pipemakers and pipes in articles exploring such