Clay Pipe – Lord ‘BOBS’ Roberts

Summer 2014

This pipe was found recently at the Garrison Fort community excavations in Leith undertaken by Nick Garry of NG Archaeology. The letters underneath the face read ‘BOBS’. This was the nickname for Lord Roberts, a Victorian Field Marshall, who was one of the most popular soldiers of that era. The backbone of Lord Roberts’ Honour Guard consisted of Veterans of the old Highland regiments who fought under his command in the Crimea and in India during the Mutiny, so it is not surprising to find a pipe depicting him with his nickname here in Leith. Lord Roberts was so popular that when he died in 1914 he was given a state funeral and buried at St Pauls Cathedral, one of only two non-royals of the twentieth century to recieve such an honour, the other being Winston Churchill.

Update: Summer 2023

Intriguingly, in the past few weeks, somebody emailed me who had been on a hiking trip in the remote area of the Green Mountain State Forest in southwestern Vermont, where they happened to find another ‘BOBS’ pipe! Perhaps tellingly, the area where they picked it up is known as ‘McIntyre’, hinting at a Scottish/Irish connection. See how the photographs compare with my original illustration.

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  Medieval bone comb. © Headland Archaeology Ltd.
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  18th Century clay smoking pipe. © the National Trust for Scotland.
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  Clay pipe. © the National Trust for Scotland.
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  Shale bracelet. The convention for representing shale artefacts is to use line illustration as opposed to stipple, (which is also much more aesthetically pleasing). It also demonstrates how versatile vector graphics programs, are at representing artefacts in different ways. © Headland Archaeology Ltd.

Update: Summer 2024

Once again, someone has got in touch to say they have ownership of a ‘BOBS’ pipe. In this case, Pete Kerr notified me that the pipe shown here was found during the 1970s in Portstewart Harbour, Northern Ireland, which has long had strong cultural links to Scotland.

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