Ben Wade

Ben Wade is an English pipe brand founded in Leeds in 1860; yet the name is now most associated with a production period that has nothing to do with its country of origin — the freehand pipes made in Denmark in the 1970s.

Having passed through three different owners and three different production setups over a century and a half, two pipes bearing the same name may not resemble each other at all. For this reason Ben Wade should be read not through a single description but through its eras.

A Century in Yorkshire

Benjamin Wade began in the pipe trade and opened his own briar workshop in Leeds sometime in the 1860s. The workshop remained in the same city for more than a century. Pipes from this period were made in classic English shapes, mostly of modest size and from unfilled wood; the brand is therefore counted among the top-tier English producers of its day. Before the war, products were divided into three grades: the top tier was stamped "Ben Wade," the middle line "BW," and the lower line "BWL." The factory was destroyed in air raids on Leeds during the Second World War; the family rebuilt the plant shortly after the war and resumed production where it had left off.