stinkpot
Illustration — A depiction demonstrating the use of the Chinese stinkpot shown in the Traité sur les feux d'artifice pour le spectacle et pour la guerre by French pyrotechnician Jean-Charles Perrinet d'Orval, 1745 A stinkpot or stink-pot was an incendiary and suffocating weapon used in the 19th century during the Qing dynasty, especially in naval operations. It is an earthenware incendiary weapon part filled with sulphur, gunpowder, nails, and shot, while the other part was filled with noxious materials designed to emanate a highly unpleasant and suffocating smell to its enemies when ignited. British Admiral Sir William Robert Kennedy recorded the use of the stinkpot in 1856 during the Second Opium War in his book Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor - Fifty Years in the Royal Navy.
Also recorded as stink-pot
stinkpot
Jean-Charles Perrinet d'Orval (1745) · Essay sur les feux d'artifice pour le spectacle et pour la guerre von Jean-Charles Perrinet d'Orval [1] · Public domain
- Field
- incendiary device
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for stinkpot. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q2350224
In this article
Definition
He described it as: Describing the method of use of the stinkpot, Kennedy writes: Stinkpots were used in the War of 1812 by the British Navy during a bombardment of Stonington, Connecticut, on August 9, 1814. Rossiter Johnson in his book, "A History of the War of 1812-1815 between the United States and Great Britain", writes: "It was toward evening when Hardy opened his ports and fired upon the town every kind of missile in use at that day--round-shot, grape-shot, canister, bomb-shells. Carcasses, rockets, and stink-pots." Stinkpots are mentioned in The Siege of Krishnapur, novel by J G Farrell.
Institutional cataloguing adds that stinkpot is classified as an incendiary device.
Catalogued output
Recorded examples
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Stinkpot (weapon), revision 1291609225 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.die überwiegende Literatur stellt stets einen Bezug zu Seegefechten her. Allerdings ist der Einsatz von Stinktöpfen beispielhaft auch im Rahmen der Belagerung von Groningen im Jahr 1672 erwähnt – siehe Autobiografie von Karl Freiherr Rabenhaupt von Suche (bzw. Sucha) ( ). Die überwiegende Literatur setzt den Stinktopf in einen Bezug zur „Artilleriekunst“, wieder andere setzt Bezüge zur „Feuerwerkskunst“ – beide beziehen sich aber eindeutig auf eine Feindbekämpfung
- 2.Stinktopf. 16. 838.
- 3.Duft- und Riechstoffe.
- 4.Stinktopf → Stinkpott.
- 5.Nicolas-Marie Ozanne. Marine militaire ou, Recueil des différents vaisseaux qui servent à la guerre, suivis des manœuvres qui ont le plus de rapport au combat, ainsi quà l’attaque et à la défense des ports. 1762.
- 6.Alfred Geibig. Sturmgefäße / Lime and Fire Pots. 2012. 978-3-87472-089-2.
- 7.durch die Ausstattung der eigenen Mannschaft mit in Essig oder wohlriechenden Ölen getränkten Tüchern, die vor das Gesicht gehängt wurden, konnte die Geruchsbelästigung etwas abmildert werden
- 8.in Karl May: Kong-Kheou, das Ehrenwort. Erstes Kapitel: „Tsching tsching tschin!“
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witness
Connections
Knowledge graph
Connections
Each connection was recorded deliberately, with the basis for it kept on the internal record.
Broader subject
1- incendiary deviceTerminology
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Militaria
6,095 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- StielhandgranateTerminology
- Stielhandgranate 24Terminology
- stilettoTerminology
- Sting Ray torpedoTerminology
- STK 40 AGLTerminology
- STL-1ATerminology
- STM KarguTerminology
- Stoeger Coach GunTerminology
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own an object connected with stinkpot?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.