London’s insatiable appetite for tobacco!
Though it’s rarely acknowledged now, London was once the smoking capital of the world, awash with tobacco houses!
Tobacco was introduced to the capital from Florida in the mid-16th century. It was subsequently popularised at court by Sir Walter Raleigh and by the 1590s Londoners were addicted.
“They always carry the instrument on them”, wrote a Swiss traveller in 1599, “lighting up on all occasions: at the play, in the taverns, or elsewhere.”
“Even at night,” reported an astonished Venetian in 1617, “they keep the pipe and steel at their pillows and gratify their longings”. At school, pupils sometimes had a pipe of tobacco for breakfast.
To meet this insatiable demand for the “holy herb”, tobacco houses sprouted all over London. In 1614, one pamphleteer counted 7,000 – more than the number of alehouses and taverns combined, though at 3d per pipe full, it wasn’t cheap.
