The mills behind English snuff

On the Porter Brook in Sheffield there's a mill that still grinds snuff with machinery from the 1700s. Historic England's listing for Sharrow Mills describes a water wheel about six metres across, turning an 18th-century spur wheel that drives eight pestle-and-mortar snuff mills on each upper floor. The listing calls the place "an outstandingly important water powered industrial complex" and adds that "its early C18 machinery is complete and in use."

Records survive for snuff makers in Kendal and Morden too, and for one London shop.

Sheffield: the Wilsons of Sharrow

The mill began as a cutlers' grinding wheel belonging to the Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Wilson, a maker of blade shears, took the tenancy in 1737. His son Joseph added Sheffield plate and saw making, and snuff manufacture started there in the 1740s. On 20 January 1763 a fire destroyed much of the mill, and Joseph rebuilt it as a purpose-built snuff mill. The family bought it outright from the Duke's estate in 1798.

The Wilsons still own it. Water can drive the mortars, though electricity often does the work now.

Kendal: a recipe in a bank strong room

In 1792 Thomas Harrison of Kendal brought machinery from Scotland, along with the know-how to run a four-mortar snuff mill, and set it up on the River Mint at Mealbank. Around 1830 his son, also Thomas, moved to 27 Lowther Street and opened a snuff factory there, bringing the recipe for Kendal Brown with him. Kendal Museum says the formula is still kept in a bank strong room in the town, known to one or two of the firm's most trusted staff.

Harrison's snuff business passed to Samuel Gawith, and the Gawith name has been tied to Kendal snuff ever since. Two Kendal firms grew out of it, Samuel Gawith and Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Kendal Brown is flavoured with camphor, and the museum lists other old Kendal names alongside it: Afterglow, Otterhound, Bouquet, Sir Rumney's Mentholyptus and Western Glory, which it describes as a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill.

Morden: 6,000 pounds of snuff a month

South London had its own mills. At what is now Morden Hall Park, two snuff mills on the River Wandle were built by the Garth family around 1750 and 1830. From 1831 they were leased by the tobacco firm Taddy & Co, whose partner Alexander Hatfeild ran them with his son Gilliat. The National Trust, which now owns the park, says the tobacco came from Virginia and was blended at Taddy's factory in the Minories, and that the mills produced 6,000 pounds of snuff a month.

A millworker, John Groves, remembered the work as dusty and noisy. In the early 1920s Taddy's workers joined an industry-wide strike for better conditions, and snuff milling at Morden ended. By then, the Trust notes, cigars and cigarettes had become cheaper, and water mills like Morden's had been outdone by steam.

How the snuff was made

Kendal Museum gives a simplified account of the old process. Leaf arriving at the factory was split in two. For dry working, the leaves were dried and then smashed to powder by steel balls inside a revolving drum. For wet working, they went into a conical mortar where a revolving steel pestle ground them down. The powder then went to a three-pestle mortar for finer grinding, and into a mixing pot, where moisture, salt and various carbonates were added. Some makers added ammonia to bring out the flavour of the tobacco.

Then came the blending. Different grades were mixed, and essential oils, camphor or spices gave each snuff its own scent.

A snuff shop in the Haymarket

Fribourg & Treyer sold snuff from 34 Haymarket, and its bow-windowed shopfront is Grade II* listed. The London Encyclopaedia records that "up to 1820, ninety per cent of the sales was snuff and only ten per cent tobacco", and lists David Garrick, George IV and Beau Brummell among its customers. The shop closed in 1981. The Fribourg & Treyer name lives on in snuff made today by Wilsons of Sharrow.

On the shelf

Kendal Brown is still made, and you'll find Samuel Gawith's Kendal Brown Original on Mr Snuff, along with the Samuel Gawith, Wilsons of Sharrow and Fribourg & Treyer ranges.

Sources

• Historic England, list entry 1247589, Sharrow Mills, Sheffield (Grade II*, listed 28 June 1973).
• Wikipedia, "Sharrow Mills", citing David Crossley (ed.), Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers (Sheffield Trades Historical Society) and David Hey, A History of Sheffield (Carnegie Publishing). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharrow_Mills
• Kendal Museum, "Kendal and Snuff" information sheet. kendalmuseum.org.uk
• National Trust, "The history of Morden Hall Park". nationaltrust.org.uk
• Christopher Hibbert, Ben Weinreb, John Keay and Julia Keay, The London Encyclopaedia, 3rd edition (Pan Macmillan, 2011), p. 309, on Fribourg & Treyer; Historic England list entry 1357092, 34 Haymarket.
• Wikipedia, "Fribourg & Treyer". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fribourg_&_Treyer