Tobacconists 1901 ?-1929. Restart date 2000.

A History.

In 1994 my wife and I were in a pub in Bolton, Yorkshire near the Scottish border, when an elderly gentleman asked me what tobacco I was smoking. I told him and he said " you haven' had anything till you had Compton's. That was tobacco!" I had never heard of Compton's and all he knew was that they had ceased trading before the "War" and Compton's had been near the "borders". So began the search for Compton's tobacco. In 1998 we found out who "Compton's were and, better still, two years later were able to obtain their blend recipes. Some ingredients are no longer available as are some processes. Below is a brief incomplete history of Compton's.

To order some of the tobacco blends we have recreated click here.

Robert Compton Hall was born in 1854 in Edinburgh Scotland. In 1876 he joined the Indian Army as a subaltern and was later posted to the 2nd Regiment of Cavalry, Punjab Frontier Force, India. He took part in the Second Afghan War 1878-80, when general Roberts captured Kabul. In the relief of Kandahar, Robert Compton Hall was badly wounded in the leg by an Afghan bullet.
He was sent to the Ootacamund hill station to recover. During his convalescence he began to experiment with bending his own pipe smoking tobaccos. They rapidly became popular with his fellow officers. His leg never bones knit properly and he was discharged from the Indian Army.

A cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army of the type Robert Compton Hall would have commanded.

An Indian Regimental Sergeant Major of a cavalry regiment.

He returned to England in 1882. In London during the season he met Georgina Sewart, who was ten years older than he was. They were married the following year, in the winter of 1883.
From the description we have of them at the wedding Robert Compton Hall was six two with piecing blue eyes and thick curly red hair. Even with his gimpy leg he cut a dashing figure. Georgina was small and petite with dark features and described as a handsome woman.
Fortunately for Robert she had a small annual income, as all he had was his army pension. As their income was not really large enough to support them in London society they retired to Galashiels, Scotland where his wife's family were involved in manufacturing of tweed and she had a small cottage in the countryside.
Galashiels was not a large town, but being on the Scottish/English border had some advantages. With the new railways crisscrossing England Robert's business could import tobacco through the port of Edinburgh and ship after processing/blending by train to anywhere in Great Britain or to the ports of London or Bristol for easy shipment to India.
Robert started to work seriously at blending pipe-smoking tobaccos as he need to generate extra income.
His blends were good. Due to his old army connections, he became a significant supplier to various regimental messes of the British Indian Army.

From that base he began to supply some Highland Regiment's officers messes.
The business prospered and Robert and Georgina became relatively well off. They participated in all the local hunts and balls. In the fall of 1901 while riding with the local hunt his horse threw Robert and his leg was shattered again. Infection set in and he died two months later.

His wife Georgina brought in a manager to help her run the tobacco business. It continued to prosper until the First World War, when supplies of leaf and condiments became unreliable. When the war ended the business recovered and grew again.
In 1929 the great depression occurred and the business contracted severely. Georgina Compton Hall was then seventy-six years old with no children of her own. She chose to close the business, as there was no one to carry it on. A few years later she died and left her papers and assets to a distant cousin.

The cousin preserved all the Hall's papers and they eventually ended up in the possession of the late Miss. Evelyn Glynnis Sewart, a distant Sewart relative who lived in the Bahamas. From the Estate of Miss. Sewart we were able to purchase the original "blends book", ( a bunch of papers with recipes), in August 2000. Tattered and mildewed but still legible.

It has taken us over 5 years to recreate some of the Compton's bends. Over the next years we intend to recreate as many of the original twenty-eight mixtures and blends as possible.
Pipes2smoke.com is please and honored to be able to offer the first selection of Compton's of Galashiels blends and mixtures.

HOMEPAGE

Baldo Baldi, Blakemar Briars, Castello, John Calich, Ferndown, Huybrecht - London Castle, Northern Briars, Peter Heeschen, Larry Roush, Manuel Shaabi, Ben Wade, High Ends, Estate Pipes, Compton's Hand Blended Tobacco, Closeouts,

HOMEPAGE

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