Tobacco pipe, clay tobacco pipe

Early 17th century clay tobacco pipe with moulded foliate decoration. Tobacco smoking was introduced to Britain in the late 16th century after European explorers encountered it in the Americas. The English colony of Jamestown in Virginia, America, relied on tobacco crops for its survival. Tobacco quickly became Virginia’s main cash crop so thousands of migrants, including indentured servants, ‘vagrant children and idle fellows’, left London to work on the plantations. The workday was long and conditions were harsh. In London, the smoking habit spread like wildfire, despite the disapproval of King James I who thought the habit ‘barbarous and beastly’.