Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 12:

Women do not nowadays shun the smell of smoke as they did in early Victorian days, as if it were the most dreadful of odours. They are tolerant of smoking in their presence, in public places, in restaurants—in fact, wherever men and women congregate—to a degree that would have horrified extremely their mothers and grandmothers. It is only within the last few years that visits to music-halls and theatres of varieties have been socially possible to ladies. Men go largely because they can smoke during the performance; women go largely because they have ceased to consider tobacco-smoke as a thing to be rigidly avoided, and therefore have no hesitation in accompanying their menfolk.

Read More

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 9:

Among other well-known men of standing and fashion who were smokers about this period may be named Lord Eldon, Lord Stowell, Brougham, Lord Calthorp and H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. In Thackeray's "Book of Snobs," Miss Wirt, the governess at Major Ponto's, refers in shocked tones to "H.R.H. the poor dear Duke of Sussex (such a man my dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)."

Sad to say, the Royal Duke was not content with the cigar that was becoming fashionable, but actually smoked a pipe. Mrs. Stirling, in "The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope," 1913, notes that Lord Althorp was a frequent visitor about 1822 at Holkham, the well-known seat of Mr. Coke of Norfolk, later Lord Leicester, and that on such occasions he enjoyed "the distinction of being the only guest besides the Duke of Sussex who ever indulged in the rare habit of smoking. But while the Royal Duke was wont to puff away at a long meerschaum in his bedroom till he actually blinded himself, and all who came near him, Fidèle Jack [Lord Althorp's nickname] behaved in more considerate fashion, only smoking out of doors as he passed restlessly up and down the grass terrace."

Read More