A farmer carrying a yoke with two milk buckets is depicted on both sides of the bowl. This decoration had long lost
its popularity by the time this pipe was made. The depictions are sloppy and not very professionally engraved and it
seems that this pipe was made as an inexpensive pipe for rural buyers. On the side of the heel is the coat of arms of
Gouda with the letter S. This means that this pipe has been classified by the pipe maker as a pipe of the second-best
quality. However, the pipe does not show any signs of workmanship corresponding to the quality of this pipe. Due to
the poor finish, this pipe therefore belongs to the coarse pipes. The fact that Teunis van Dijk used to be a guild manager
and that he violated the guild rules with this pipe is a sign that the enforcement of guild rules was not consistent.
In this article, two groups of clay pipes are reviewed, that were found in the province of Zeeland, both in the vicinity
of the city of Middelburg. Although the pipes of both groups were found at the different locations, one group consists
of a complete private collection and therefore has a relevance with regards to it’s composition. The second group
is formed by a selection of pipes with unkown or uncommon makers marks. Special highlights from the first collection
are two fragments of very large pipes, which were most likely made for advertising or promotion purposes. The
majority of the pipes from the first collection can be attributed to a variety of pipe makers workshops from different
cities in the Netherlands. The composition of this group generally confirms the findings of earlier reports about clay
pipe finds from this province and presents a number of unknown, potentially locally made products. The second
group consists of pipes with several uncommon or unknown makers marks which could have been made locally.
In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a collection of pipe bowls is kept that have been found during the excavations
at the manor house Arentsburg in Voorburg, the location of Forum Hadriani (the northern-most Roman city on the
European continent and the second oldest city of The Netherlands). The pipes were found under the supervision of
Professor Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens (1793-1835) during the first Dutch scientific archaeological excavation in 1827-1831. They are therefore the first pipe bowls collected during an official archaeological excavation in the Netherlands. Reuvens was appointed to the Leiden University in 1818 by King William I and was the first Professor of archeology in the world. He was also involved in the establishment of the National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum
van Oudheden) in Leiden.
What do clay pipes, gas factories and a shipwreck (code ZP5/6) from Southern Flevoland have in common? A batch
of nearly a hundred pipe bowls, found during the excavation of a small wooden vessel, provides an answer to this
question. Based on the investigation of the cargo it may be assumed that it is the waste from a gas factory.
The ship sank in the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century on the Zuiderzee and was found near Zeewolde. In this
research, clay pipes again proved to have a great dating value. One of the pipe bowls is the youngest find in the wreck
and thus provides a terminus post quem dating: the ship can only have perished after the production date of the pipe
in question. This article describes the pipes from ZP5/6 which are all of Dutch manufacture with the exception of
some porcelain pipe fragments.
In 1975 the wreck of an almost twenty-meter-long vessel was found near Zeewolde in Southern Flevoland. The
sinking of the vessel was dated to the end of the nineteenth century. In 2019 additional research was conducted and
ultimately, the ship could be identified as De Drie Gezusters (The Three Sisters) of skipper Meijer from Wildervank
in Groningen. The ship, coming from Rotterdam with a cargo of coal, sank on the night of June 20, 1893, close to
Harderwijk in present-day Zeewolde. On board, tobacco pipes of various materials and articles for the storage of
tobacco were found and a fragment of a metal pipe mould. The latter was not intended to make smoking pipes but
for candy pipes and probably on board to re-use the metal for yet unknown purposes.
This article, based on recently found documents, provides new information about the assortment, the trade, trade
relations and the development of the Hollandia firm established by van der Want and Barras in Gouda in 1898. This
firm mainly made slip-cast pipes. Early knowledge about this firm was very limited with only a few articles being
published. As Hollandia was one of the four important firms making pipes and plateel in the 20th century this new
information also ads important new insights into the development of the pipe industry in the 20th century. In this
article previously unknown catalogues, advertising material, letters and invoices sent to their clients, as well as a
large collection of pipes have been used to provide new revelations in the history of the Hollandia firm.
Belgium’s refusal to allow German troops to pass freely through their country to France caused Germany to invade
Belgium on August 4, 1914. During the first days of the war, tens of thousands of Belgians fled to The Netherlands,
which had remained neutral. These early days saw the founding of the ‘Dutch Committee in support of Belgian and
other victims’. This citizens’ initiative was later taken over by the government. In Gouda there was a refuge, set up by
a local support committee, for 2000 people. It is not surprising that Belgian born George Barras, one of the founders
and owners of Van der Want & Barras (Hollandia and Regina), cared about the fate of his compatriots. He wanted
to make products especially for them that testified to his patriotism and he started to produce, amongst others, pipes
with images of the Belgian royal family and the flags of the Allies. The pipes were not only intended for the refugees,
but also for export to Belgium.
This article highlights a separate group of smoking pipes with striking designs that differ from the most common figural pipes from the French Gambier company based in Givet. These pipes are designed with the tobacco bowl formed by the entire body of a human or animal. Gambier produced several of these ‘pipes-statuettes’ or clay figurines. Usually, these pipes belonged to the regular range and are shown in the various catalogues. Some were made only for a short period of time on the occasion of a special event and do not appear in the catalogues. They were replaced by new models after declining sales figures. In this article a selection is made from this special group of pipes and several striking models are described and shown.
In recent years, increasing insight has been gained into the pipe makers, their workforce, and the pipes produced in Roeselare. While many researchers have focused on other regions, the pipe industry in Flanders has long remained insufficiently studied. For Roeselare, apart from specialised articles on pipes, only general references to the industry were available. The pipe industry of Roeselare has also been mentioned in survey works, such as the book by Jacques Caro, which lists only seven pipe makers active there. Nothing at all was known about women working in pipe factories. The lists presented in this article demonstrate that the figures cited in various statistics underestimate the true size of the workforce.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, asbestos was highly regarded and it was used
for all sort of things. For example, tobacco was mixed with asbestos to make it burn better. The reasoning was that
the asbestos absorbed the tobacco juices to the very end and thus ensured better combustion. At that time, nothing
was known about the harmfulness of asbestos. The first warnings for asbestos appeared in the 1930s, but it was not
until 1978 that the first bans on the use of asbestos were issued and it was not until 1993 that its application and use
were banned completely. The so-called asbestos pipes also date from around 1900. These were manufactured by
various firms such as the Belgian firms De Bevere in Kortrijk, Knoedgen in Bree and Wingender Frères in Chokier.
