uk bat.com - 18th and 19th century
1700's
An increasing number of protectionist barriers are created, particularly in the eastern United States, to safeguard English interests.
1725
Following the fashion of the day, Pope Benedict XIII allows the use of snuff in St Peter's Church, reversing a ban imposed 75 years earlier by Innocent X.
1779
Scenting a business opportunity, the Vatican opens its own tobacco factory.
1800
British and French soldiers fighting in Spain during the Napoleonic wars bring cigars back home. Their popularity grows quickly.
1820
A smoking room is established in the British House of Commons.
1827
Cigar consumption increases with the invention of the friction-activated phosphorous match.
1846-48
The Mexican war leads to a huge increase in the popularity of cigars – smoked by soldiers trying to relieve fatigue and quash hunger. Soldiers develop a taste for the darker tobaccos from the south.
1850
In the United States, tobacco is linked to the temperance movement. Reverend George Trask, a former smoker, sets up the American Anti-Tobacco Society for which he serves as president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and auditor.
1868
Smoking compartments are introduced on English railways.
1881
James Bonsack, a Virginian, invents a machine that can produce 120,000 cigarettes a day. James "Buck" Duke, destined to become the first chairman of British-American Tobacco 21 years later, buys two machines and his family's tobacco company moves into cigarettes.
1890
In America, 26 states pass laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors.
1899
Lucy Page Gaston, an Illinois teacher and journalist and member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, establishes the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League.
