Gambier

Gambier is a clay pipe manufactory that operated from 1780 to 1928 in the town of Givet, France, on the Belgian border. It made its name with pipes whose bowls were molded in the shape of a recognizable face or figure, and was considered the most widespread clay pipe brand in France throughout the nineteenth century.

From Family Workshop to Factory

The workshop founded in 1780 by Jean Gambier, from Dieppe, produced in its early years pipes similar to the long-stemmed Dutch pipes that were the standard of the period. His son Joseph Gambier, who took over the business in 1817, made two changes: he shortened the stem and added removable mouthpieces fitted onto the neck of the bowl, and then began molding the bowl like a portrait. This produced the first industrial-scale examples of the tradition of portraits worked into pipes.

Minervin Hasslauer bought the workshop in 1835; the following year he expanded capacity further by buying the land and building of a neighboring pipe maker. Sales offices opened in Paris in 1846 and in London in 1860; the London office operated until 1896. The gold medal won at the 1849 Paris exhibition and the 1867 takeover of the rival Blanc-Garin factory in Givet made the business the region's largest producer: by 1868, six hundred people were working in its workshops.