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This is an extract of one of Arthur Cleverly's recollections about the time he worked in Anstie's factory.
The worst job in the factory was snuff making. Anstie's started as snuff makers and originally ground it at Calstone Mill and Wistley Mill, near Porterne, because there was no water power in Devizes. Later electrical power allowed them to do it at the Devizes factory and it was made on the second and third floors in the New Street part.
Snuff was made from waste tobacco, that included sweepings, any damaged leaf and also returned tobacco sent back by tobacconists as old stock. It was put into the cellar on a stone floor in big heaps, like compost heaps, moistened and kept just like compost, under sacking. When it was deemed to have, well, sort of rotted down enough, it was taken out and dried on great big metal pans heated with steam.
When it was completely dry it was fit for milling. It was carried upstairs in sacks to the milling floors. The milling rooms had quite low ceilings, very little ventilation and no extractors or anything like that because all the profits would be whisked away.
No one wanted to become the snuff maker's assistant and only one man worked as the miller. No one in their right mind would have wanted this job, as even on a hot day all the windows were kept shut to avoid losing any snuff.
The milling was done with open grinding wheels and the prepared tobacco was just shovelled into the mills. When they started to grind it was just like a brown fog in the room. No masks were worn and the first time you did it you lasted only about an hour before you had to rush from the room and be very sick. You could feel yourself filling up with snuff, your mouth was coated with it, and it was in your ears and nose and clothes.
The snuff miller seemed able to stick it, but his assistants were always chosen from people who had only just started at the factory and had not yet got a fixed job. You didn't want any food during the day, all I could take was cups of tea.
After the first milling the powder was ground again in special cone-shaped mills that made it even finer. Then it was sifted through a silk screen that vibrated and what came through that was like dust. Some of the snuffs were perfumed.
We made a brand called Otto de Rose which was made with pure attar of roses from Bulgaria. This was an oily, waxy substance made from roses that was added to the snuff in small quantities, but after the war it became too expensive to use.
Soon after I started at the factory, the job of storekeeper came up and I got that. I said at the time that I would leave rather than work in the snuff mills again.
 | From:
Devizes Voices compiled by David Buxton
Tempus Publishing
ISBN 0 7524 0661 2
£9.99
For a complete list of local history books published by Tempus Publishing visit: www.tempus-publishing.com |
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