George Apperson’s 1914 The Social History of Smoking is just what the title says it is. Apperson writes, “This is the first attempt to write the history of smoking in this country from the social point of view…I have tried to confine myself strictly to the changes in attitude of society towards smoking, and to such historical and social sidelights as serve to illuminate that theme.”1

The book covers the entrance of tobacco into England, crediting much of its popularity to Sir Walter Raleigh. It includes several variations of the the apocryphal tale where Raleigh’s smoking was seen for the first time by someone who thought he was on fire, who doused the flames by pouring beer (or water, depending on the version) onto Raleigh’s head.

As tobacco spread and became popular, it was the height of fashion for ‘gallants’, or upper-class dandies. They were incredibly particular about their accessories, and certain tricks of smoking were popular. Apperson notes, “If one contemporary writer may be believed, some of these early smokers acquired the art of emitting smoke through their ears, but a healthy skepticism is permissible here.”2

We’ve seen in other books that tobacco was thought to prevent and cure certain diseases. This was true of the Great Plague of 1665. It became a requirement that people who would have otherwise never touch tobacco were made to smoke: “When plague was abroad even children were compelled to smoke. At the time of the dreadful visitation of 1665 all the boys at Eton were obliged to smoke in school every morning.”3

Over time, smoking fell out of fashion with the upper class in England, but not the middle and lower classes. “Throughout the eighteenth century the use of tobacco for smoking was largely confined to the middle and humbler classes of society.”4 Clergy were known to smoke a great deal. The upper classes took their tobacco as snuff.

Cigars were introduced into England at the end of the 1700s and gained in popularity throughout the 1800s. This new way of taking tobacco turned the tide, and smoking became more fashionable again. And then, later, the cigarette came and displaced the cigar.

Of his current time, 1914, Apperson writes, “Tobacco is once more triumphant. The cycle of three hundred years is complete. Since the early decades of the seventeenth century, smoking has never been so generally practised nor so smiled upon by fashion as it is at the present time.”5

There is a chapter devoted to women smokers, which shows very strongly that there were women who enjoyed tobacco throughout the entire history of the plant’s known existence, though not always in every class of society.

The Social History of Smoking is an interesting adventure throughout the history of tobacco in Europe, with anecdotes and examples for all kinds of historical events. It shows the ups and downs in the popularity of tobacco in general, and different types of tobacco more specifically.

The Social History of Smoking is in the public domain and can be read for free on Project Gutenberg.

  1. G.L. Apperson, The Social History of Smoking, 1914, Preface [↩]
  2. G.L. Apperson, The Social History of Smoking, 1914, pg. 72 [↩]
  3. G.L. Apperson, The Social History of Smoking, 1914, pg. 95 [↩]
  4. G.L. Apperson, The Social History of Smoking, 1914, pg. 121 [↩]
  5. G.L. Apperson, The Social History of Smoking, 1914, pg. 238 [↩]