At a pinch

This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here.

On the same day that I arrived at Aldwych to begin life as an LSE undergraduate, Michael Frayn’s adaptation of Chekhov’s The Sneeze began playing down the road at the Aldwych Theatre. The adaptation, which included an act called “On The Evils Of Tobacco”, revolved around an involuntary sneeze, probably caused by snuff, and the chain of events it unleashed.

In those days, alcohol and tobacco played a prominent part in student life. One of my friends very ostentatiously smoked a pipe, even during hall dinners. But snuff — and concomitant sneezing — was more rarefied. There was one dandy Argentine who had a tin, and it was rumoured that our tutor, David Starkey, was a secret snuff aficionado (thanks to his signet ring that looked like a powder container). Beyond that, there was no sniff of snuff.

Kingsley Amis thought he smelled this, too, writing in the The New Oxford Book of Light Verse’s foreword, “some mysterious revenge of nature has seen to it that no poem in praise of drink or tobacco or snuff (if any) can succeed”. In the Amis triumvirate of virtues, snuff played Lepidus.

But ’twas not ever so. For there were once plenty of puppets, pirates and kings (and not a few paupers and poets) that gave their leisure to enjoying this neglected triumvir. Napoleon got through well over a pound of snuff every week whilst his nemesis, Wellington, was also a heavy user. Queen Charlotte, known to Londoners as “snuffy Charlotte”, was another devotee, as was her son George IV who, forever seeking excuses to instruct architects, built several “snuff rooms” specifically for snorting the stuff. And in his sermon of self-indulgence, Keats evangelised “give me wine, women and snuff until I cry out — ‘hold, enough!’”. The Old Devil Amis was apparently amiss in believing there was no ode to snoot tobacco.

Not that “snort” is the approved term for snuff-taking. A single, sharp sniff of the smallest quantity is what is expected, and all that is required, to achieve the salutary exhilarating sensation — and without any subsequent sternutation.

Snuff has not only got up our nose; it has also got into our vocabulary. “Up to snuff”, coined in the early 19th century to mean to be sharp on the uptake, redolent of the aromatic effect of strong snuff tobacco on the sinuses, quickly evolved to imply that the person in question was up to whatever standard of measurement was required.

The snuff trade also gave rise to a whole new set of ancillary industries, such as making spoons, “bullets” and tepis for ease of ingestion, and an infinite array of receptacles for storage. And where makers lead, collectors follow. Some snuff boxes are much sought after. A box decorated by the 18th century miniaturist Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe can fetch many thousands. The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Wallace Collection both house notable displays, whilst the Duc de Choiseul was reputed to possess over 700 exquisite golden snuff cases. I doubt he carried more than one at a time.

Today, Julian Critchlow, my Travellers’ Club friend, carries snuff in a beautifully tooled silver box. The House of Commons still offers snuff to Members. I remember the doorkeeper, Milburn, offering me a sniff from the box made of timbers from the old Commons roof and kept for safety in the doorkeeper’s lodge. It had clearly been there quite some time and had lost much of its potency. An allegory for the House itself?

I do not possess a snuff box, but I do have at home a Victorian cartoon entitled “The last pinch”. It has nothing to do with me’ but depicts a forlorn figure taking a final peck of his favourite snuff before the duty was jacked up by puritanical politicians bent on stamping out pleasure (yes, they long pre-date Starmer).