Weingott

Weingott is an English pipe brand that grew out of S. Weingott & Son, the workshop founded in 1883 by Samuel Weingott, a tobacconist on London's Fleet Street. It is considered an early milestone in the domestication of briar pipemaking in Britain. For much of the twentieth century, the brand was cited as the oldest briar pipe manufacturer listed in London trade directories.

From Tobacco Shop to Workshop

According to records, Weingott had been running a tobacco shop at 3 Fleet Street since 1859; the knowledge of tobacco he built up over the years led him toward working with the material itself. He is said to have begun experimenting with briar between 1865 and 1870, moving into regular production in 1883. In those years, nearly all the briar pipes sold in England came from continental Europe, and domestic production largely meant the clay pipe. Weingott's venture was one of the first serious attempts to establish a London counterpart to briar's rise, which had begun in Saint-Claude.

The industry's view of the venture was skeptical at first; many said the business wouldn't take. Against that, within sixteen years of its founding the workshop had grown into one of the country's largest pipe manufacturers and was exporting to the colonies. According to an interview the founder gave to an English magazine in 1899, this growth had produced a workforce large enough to found a nationwide pipemakers' union.