Slavery and Smoking Culture: The Legacy of the Wills Family in Bristol

By Silva Shahini, 2nd Year History

Via Getty Images

The name ‘Wills’ evokes many visceral reactions in a university of Bristol student. The hours spent working away in Wills Memorial Library. The cameo of Wills Memorial Building in Skins, a TV show so frequently cited as capturing the zeitgeist of Bristol. To even Wills Hall, an accommodation infamous to those previously living in Stokes Bishop. However, this name is more than the name of the 65ft gothic tower, the name of a financial backer of the university and the name of a Stoke Bishop accommodation. In fact, it carries a far darker legacy…  

While smokers exist across the country, Bristol’s relationship with smoking is unique compared to other locations. As a city with one of the highest rates of smoking out of any UK City, it is no coincidence that one of its most influential families was instrumental in creating the very smoking culture it suffers from. This article will be exploring the different impacts today within different communities in Bristol due to the Wills’ tobacco empire. 

The University of Bristol’s first chancellor, founder and financial backer, Henry Overton Wills III and his family ran the family firm of WD and HO Wills, a tobacco and cigarette-producing company. Their cigarette-producing machine - the Bonsack Machine - made cigarettes easy to produce, popularising smoking as an addictive habit, thus building the Wills' fortune. This fortune is how they were able to build their legacies.  

To maintain their mass output of tobacco and cigarettes, the Wills Family was reliant on the produce of enslaved peoples. Whilst the Wills Family didn’t directly trade in enslaved people, they nonetheless profit from their labour, even after the 1833 Abolition Act.

The impact of the Wills family today is not just the buildings that carry their name, the logos that carry their crest and the enslaved people who were exploited for profit. There is another controversial legacy, the socio-economic and health impacts of the family making smoking so accessible.  

Bristol’s student culture is heavily influenced by smoking in all forms, and this can be seen in popular culture and the commentary of the University of Bristol. Examples can be seen in articles such as the Bristol Tab’s “Time to Defend Student Drinking and Smoking Culture” where the Tab comments on how 80% of your time will be spent in the smoking area. With articles such as this, it demonstrates how deeply engrained smoking is in the University of Bristol culture.  

The culture goes beyond students and extends to the wider city of Bristol. The TARG (Tobacco, Alcohol and Research Group) blog has a post entitled “Diary of a Dependent Smoker: The E-Cigarette Experience” which reflects the experience of a researcher at the University of Bristol trying to quit smoking. The impact of smoking within the staff can be seen in her piece as it demonstrates how Wills’ popularisation of the cigarette led to the popularisation of the e-cigarette to quit. Wills’ mass commercialisation of smoking created a long-lasting dependency which has transcended its time and led to many health inequalities within smoking as a culture and as a practice. 

The BBC recently reported on Bristol’s smoking rates: 18% of Bristolians are smokers, far higher than England’s average of 13.9%. It was similarly reported that smoking in Bristol is concentrated amongst the most disadvantaged groups and communities.

Furthermore, this demonstrates how the Wills smoking culture, founded on the exploitation of enslaved people, continues to impact the health of Bristol’s citizens. Affecting the city’s most vulnerable groups, it’s darkly ironic to see the family so widely represented throughout the City today.

The Bristorian would like to thank Dr Richard Stone for his insight and guidance in the writing of this article