HEADGEAR
See Also: BEARS Bearskins; BIRDS Feathers; CLOTHES SHOPS, SPECIALIST;
FOOTWEAR; FORENSICS The Official Hat; M LLERED; TAILORS
Bates Hatters of London
In
Bates a bowler is called a bowler and not a coke .
Location:
73 Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6NP (blue, brown)
See
Also: TAXIDERMY The Bates Shop Cat
Website:
www.bates-hats.com
Beavers
Beaver
pelts are waterproof during long exposure to water. As a result, they were used for making hats
from. Beavers were hunted to extinction
in Britain in the 16thC.
In the
early 17thC London's demand for beaver pelts was what enabled The
Mayflower settler to establish a viable community in Massachusetts.
Part of
the process by which the fur was processed involved mercury.
Location:
Hollen Street, W1F 8BQ (blue, pink)
The
Beaver Building, 105 Oxford Street, W1D 2HQ.
The building was owned by the Henry Heath hat-making business. (orange,
blue)
Boaters
Pupils
at Harrow School wear boaters. The
school is on top of a hill. The River
Thames is several miles away.
Location:
5 High Street, HA1 3HP
Cap Regulation
The
Caps Act of 1571 required every male over the age of six - who was not a
gentleman or a noble - to wear a woollen cap on Sundays and holidays. William Shakespeare's Uncle Henry was fined
for not wearing one. Love's Labour
Lost (c.1595) refers to a plain statute cap .
Tossing
caps in the air suggested social and therefore political anarchy, e.g.
in Coriolanus (c.1606).
See
Also: CLASS; GHOSTS Sheet Ghosts
Christys' London
Miller
Christy was a Scottish Quaker who served a felt making apprenticeship in
Edinburgh. Having done so, he moved to
London. In 1773 he and Joseph Storrs,
another Quaker, set up a hat manufacturing business in Whitehall Court.
In 1847
Christys was awarded a contract to make hats for the recently founded
Metropolitan Police. This led to the
business becoming the official manufacturer of helmets for British police
forces.
Following
the popularity of the newly created bowler, the firm's factory in Bermondsey
manufactured them on a large scale.
The top
hat had been devised in the final years of the 18thC. It received the royal seal of approval when
Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, took to wearing one that had been
manufactured in Christys.
Christys
opened a store at 1 Old Bond Street, on the corner with Piccadilly. This came to be known as Scotts, the surname
of a manager whom the firm employed
In the
1820s Christys had acquired a hat manufacturing business that was based in
Stockport, Cheshire. In 1886 this was
visited by John B. Stetson (1830-1906), an American hatmaker. 21 years earlier he had devised the boss of
the plains hat - later known as the stetson - as a practical, hygienic
alternative to the coonskin cap and wool derbies that were then widely worn in
the American West. It had been based upon
Christys ten-gallon hat. He paid the
firm a royalty.
The
Christys family sold Scotts to Lock & Co. in 1969.
The
firm manufactured the homburg that the actor Marlon Brando wore when he
performed the role of Don Corleone in the movie The Godfather (1972).
Christys'
was acquired by the department store Liberty & Co. in 2011.
Location:
12 Princes Arcade, SW1Y 6DS (blue, pink)
23 St
Christopher's Place, W1U 1NR (purple, grey)
102
Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB
136
Bermondsey Street, SE1 3TX
Website:
https://www.christys-hats.com
Hat Manufacturing
Peckham
has a hat-making factory that is 200-years-old.
At one
time, Bermondsey had the world's largest hat-making factory.
Bognor
Regis
Richard
Hotham (1722-1799) was a successful hatter.
By the 1760s he was in a position to be able to charter ships to the
East India Company. He wrote two
pamphlets in which he criticised negatively the quality of the enterprise s
management. In 1769 he was
knighted. This is because of expressions
of loyalty to King George III during the Wilkesite agitations. He was elected one of Southwark's M.P.s in
1780, defeating the brewer Henry Thrale in the process. Within the House, he was a progressively-minded
member of the Opposition. He suffered
illness in the mid-1780s. His
association with the captain of one of his ships appears to have been what drew
him to spend time in western Sussex fishing hamlet Bognor in order to try to
improve his health. He used his wealth
to develop the settlement into a seaside resort, building up a 1600-acre
estate. He noted that the local clay was
suitable for brickmaking which was not something that had been
appreciated. The resort proved to be
popular with the upper ranks of society.
Location:
Serle Street, WC2A 3QN. Hotham's first
known business premises. (purple, brown)
Strand,
WC2N 5HS. A second business premises.
Merton
Place, Nelson Grove Road, SW19 2NH
Hat Stands
It has
been claimed that well into the 1970s the B.B.C. had a policy of having
oak-framed hat stands in its radio studios.
James Lock & Company
James
Lock & Company was founded on the west side of St James's Street in
1676. It crossed the road to its present
premises in 1763.
In 2000
it was reported that James Lock & Company had received a cheque for 3 and
six shillings from one Royston du Maurier in settlement of Oscar Wilde's unpaid
bill with the firm that dated back to 1895.
The business had written the sum off following the playwright s
conviction for gross indecency.
Location:
6 St James's Street, SW1A 1EF (orange, yellow)
See
Also: OSCAR WILDE
Website:
www.lockhatters.com
The
Coke
In 1850
the original bowler hat was designed to be worn by the (pheasant) beaters of
Edward Coke, a younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.1 Coke stipulated that the hat should be hard
and also close-fitting so that it would not be blown off easily. The work was sub-contracted by Lock to Thomas
Bowler & Company. A new machine had
been developed recently that enabled the felt to be pounded more tightly than
had been possible before. The resulting
item was then coated with shellac. The
prototype was tested by being jumped upon.
In a modified form, the hat became ubiquitous fashionable headwear in
the late 19thC and early 20thC. Lock's staff refer to the hat as a coke .
See
Also: WEATHER Wind
1. The Coke family were Norfolk landowners.
London Hat Week
The
inaugural London Hat Week was held in 2014.
Website:
www.londonhatweek.com
Milliners
John
Boyd Hats
John
Boyd (1925-2018) served his apprenticeship with Aage Thaarup, the leading
milliner of the 1940s. During the war
Boyd served in the Royal Navy. During
any shore leave he had he would go in search of items that he might be able to
make use of when he returned to the millinery trade. In 1946 he opened his first shop in a
basement in Chelsea. The first hat that
he sold was returned to him by an outraged customer. I m looking for a new husband, not trying to
get rid of one! The following year the
fashion designer John Duncan asked him for two dozen hats to complement his
autumn collection. Boyd's reputation was
soon established and members of the royal family started to wear hats that he
had created.
Location:
16a New Quebec Street, W1H 7RU (red, turquoise)
Website:
www.johnboydhats.co.uk
Philip
Treacy
The
fashion editor Isabella Blow discovered Philip Treacy while he was still a
student at the Royal College of Art.
Location:
69 Elizabeth Street, SW1W 9PJ (orange, yellow)
See
Also: CLOTHES DESIGN ASSOCIATED Fashion Journalism, Isabella Blow
Website:
www.philiptreacy.co.uk
Pointy Hats
Pointy
hats were regarded as being associated with the acquiring wisdom: hence both
wizards hats and dunces caps.
Top Hats
John
Etherington was a hatter. In 1797 he
created the first top hat and chose to wear to walk home. Its appearance was so radical that a public
disturbance was triggered. Mr
Etherington was arrested.
There
is a theory that George Dunnage created the silk top hat in 1793.
In 1803
the Russian Army J gers started wearing top hats.
The
original top hats were made with beaver skins.
As beavers became rarer in North America silk took over.
Since
the Second World War they have been made predominantly from satin not plush.
The
City of London
In the
1960s people could only wear a top hat in the City of London if they worked for
the Bank of England.
See
Also: THE CITY OF LONDON & FINANCE The Government Broker
The
Mad Hatter
Part of
the process by which the beaver fur was processed involved mercury. Making a silk cylinder hat (top hat) did not
involve the use of mercury. There is an
irony that Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter should sport one.
Trade Hats
Coal
Porters
Coal
porters hats had leather flaps that extended down from the back to protect
their necks.
Fish
Porters
The
porters of Billingsgate Market were renowned for their traditional hard, flat
hats, which are called bobbing hats.
These enabled them to balance weights of over 100lbs. upon their heads. It has been claimed that they are modelled on
the hats that were worn by the archers at Agincourt.
Location:
Trafalgar Way, E14 5ST
See
Also: FOOD MARKETS, FORMER Billingsgate Market, Market Porters
Taxi
Drivers
Many
taxi drivers used to sport a flat peak cap
The Vented Hat
The statistician
and eugenicist Francis Galton devised a vented hat. Its purpose was to keep a person's head cool
when he was thinking hard.
David
Backhouse 2024