Pipes That Won't Smoke: Glass and Pratt Ware

Pipes that won't smoke is the collective name for objects that take the form of a pipe without being designed to smoke tobacco. In England, in the period stretching from the late 18th century to the early 20th, two product groups stand out under this heading: glass pipes and the raised-relief earthenware pipes known as Pratt Ware.

Both share the same features that set them apart from a functional pipe: a nonporous body, heat-vulnerable material, and a smoke channel that cannot be cleaned. Museum records classify these pieces as decorative objects. The heading here is borrowed from the title of Carol Sheehan's 1981 book on argillite pipes.

Glass Pipes

Objects glassblowers made for themselves from leftover glass at the end of a shift are called friggers, whimsies, or "end-of-day" pieces in English. Traced back in records as far as 15th-century Germany, the practice gained its real popularity in the 19th century, and pipes were, alongside canes and boots, one of the recurring shapes. The name most often cited is the Nailsea glassworks, founded in Somerset by John Robert Lucas in 1788 and closed in 1873. Yet "Nailsea glass" today is more a stylistic label than a workshop credential: because other glassworks, chiefly Bristol and Stourbridge, worked in the same techniques, tying a given piece to the center that made it is often impossible.

In decoration, molten glass is wound around the body in threads or worked using the latticino technique; mottled, wavy, and ringed patterns are typical. Since glass doesn't stand up to heat, these bodies were never intended to actually be lit. Examples cited in sources that run over a meter long are meant strictly for tobacconist window display. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds an English glass pipe dated to the early 19th century (C.189-1912).