PIPE (SMOKING)

A fragment of the bowl of a clay tobacco pipe. Dr David Higgins comments:

Although the bowl is damaged, the incuse stamp on the back can clearly be read as SWINYARD / MAKER, the lettering being arranged in a circle around a central cross. Stylistically, this is a mid-nineteenth century or later style of mark, and can be paralleled by the incuse J HYDE / GUILDFORD stamps around a six-arm star that were used by John Hyde (Higgins 1981, Fig 7.8), who was working in Guildford from 1859-93. Earlier styles of stamp on the back of the bowl reading SWIN / YARD are known, but these have the text arranged in horizontal lines within a circular stamp, with scrolls or foliage above and below the lettering (Higgins 1981, Figs 7.7 and 7.9). These were produced by William Swinyard of Guildford, who was born in 1790 and died in 1864 . The Haslemere example could, therefore, be a later style of stamp used by the Guildford maker during the 1850s or early 1860s. Alternatively, a later member of the family, also called William Swinyard, was working in Aldershot from about 1895-1926 and so this mark could have come from his workshop. Until more examples are recorded it is hard to be sure, but my initial suggestion would be that this later style of mark is most likely belong to the Aldershot maker, and so to date from c1895-1926.