SMOKERS' "PATRON SAINT"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 66, 25 September 1939, Page 6

SMOKERS' "PATRON SAINT"

SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND TOBACCO A bronze statue of Sir Waiter Raleigh executed by Mr Benno Elkan, the sculptor, has been recently shown in. London. It is the only statue of the great Elizabethan explorer in London anei it is destined appropriately to occupy a nichc in the facade of the new works building of Messrs Godfrey Phillips, tobacco in London.

That Sir Walter Raleigh made smoking a fashionable and gentlemanly art in Britain and that his name became identified with the new national habit so thoroughly that later generations looked upon him as a kind of patron saint of smokers, is recognised. The suggestion that he introduced tobacco into England does not rest, however, on so sound a foundation.

Edmund Howes, in his continuation of John Stowe's "Annaics or General Chronicle of England,'' states: "Tobacco was first brought and made known in England by Sir John Hawkins about the year 1

but not used by Englishmen in many yecres after, though at this day commonly used by most men, and many Avomen." Tobacco was first brought to Europe in 1558 by Fmneisco Fernando* who had been sent by Philip 11. of Spain to imestigate the products of Mexico. By the French Ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nieot, seeds were sent to Catherine de Medici. Nicot'is services have been commemorated in the name of the genus Nicotiana,; amd the word nibotine. But it was due to Raleigh who "tooke a pipe of tobacco a. little before he AA'ent to th? .scaffolde,.'' (he wns executed in 1(11(3), that the habit became rooted among Elizabe than ecurt; ers.