Raleigh smoking tobacco, historical artwork. Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1552-1618) was an English soldier and explorer who popularised the use of tobacco in the 1580s and 1590s. Here, in what became a legendary story, he is shown taking his first smoke, using a long pipe of the sort used by the indigenous populations he encountered in North America. A servant, unused to this practice, has smelt the smoke and is rushing in with water which he used to douse the fire, soaking his master. This artwork was published in the work 'Tobacco, its History and Associations' (1859) by the English engraver Frederick William Fairholt (1814-1866).