Smoking club, 18th century artwork. The practice of smoking tobacco was popularised in England and Ireland in the 1580s and 1590s by the English soldier and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1552-1618). This artwork, by the English caricaturist James Gillray (1757-1815), shows members of the House of Commons puffing smoke at each other. Those present include the Speaker (left) Charles James Fox (1749-1806), the Prime Minister (second from left) William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) and the Home Secretary (second from right) Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811). This copy of this artwork was published in the work 'Tobacco, its History and Associations' (1859) by the English engraver Frederick William Fairholt (1814-1866).