The History Of Smoking (Part 2. 1500-1899)

In the early 1530's, enterprising Europeans began to cultivate the tobacco plants in the caribean, bringing them back into Europe, although it wasnt untill around 1560 or so that it was first brought into England. Apparently around the turn of the century into 1600, Sir Walter Raleigh convinced Queen Elizabeth I to try smoking, and the story goes that she was so sick, that she thought she had been poisoned !! A couple of years later, around 1604, King James I introduced a heavy tax on tobacco products, also banning all tobacco products from Londons alehouses, after brandishing it "an invention of Satan".

Sometime between 1830 and 1860 saw the invention of the friction match,  firstly known as "congreves", then "lucifers" and finally matches to which they are known today. Also around this time (early 1830's) the cigarette was born in hand rolling form, it is widely believed it was an egyptian artilleryman during the siege of acre, that invented the first hand rolled cigarette. It didnt take long after that initial founder rolling the first cigarette untill cigarette factories were popping up all over the world. It only took some 20 years from that first roll up being rolled to factories churning out almost 20million cigarettes yearly.
1880 saw Richard Benson and Willian Hedges opened a tobaconist shop in London. I bet they didnt know then that their two surnames would become household names.....world wide, and even now some 130 years later.

Will carry the "History of Smoking" on from the 1900's at another time


Vattie