Sepia Saturday: Men and Hats

Each week, Sepia Saturday, provides an opportunity for genealogy bloggers to share their family history through photographs.

This week's prompt showed a shop frontage with awnings, signs and display of fruit and veg.  But I decided to continue the theme from my last  Sepia Saturday posting on "Forward with Flat Caps" and focus on  the men's hats.   Thank you to Mike Brubaker for suggesting in his comment that a feature of men's hats could be a logical follow on.  

 

Women have lots of  hat styles but apart from cloches, berets  and the current fashion for fascinators, I cannot think of many given a distinct  name.  Very different for men,   as I soon discovered

 

• Fedora and trilby came  on the scene in the1890's and were made popular by   20th century movie stars such as Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart.

• Homburg -  named after Bad Homburg (‘Homburg Baths’), a town in  Hesse in Germany, where it was created.Think of Edward VII, Winston Churchill  and on screen Hercule Poirot.
• Pork Pie - another mid 19th century development  and associated with the man about town and jazz musicians,  
• Straw Boater -  traditionally associated with Venetian gondoliers.
• Panama  - another popular light hat for summer wear, though actually oringinated in Ecuador.
• Beret - associated with peasant wear in France (think Onion Johnny) and Spain.  Adapted in Scotland to become a Tammie - Tam O'Shanter.   
• Deer Stalker - think of Sherlock Holmes and upper class country wear.
• Bowler  - think of the typical London businessman of the 20th century with rolled umbrella, briefcase and bowler hat;  also movie comedians Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy.
• Top hats - think of romance and swirling capes - the symbol of the 19th century gentleman, now more associated with  Ascot Races and weddings.

Below are some men's hats from my family collection of photographs, though I can't always identify the style by name. 



 

 

Here is master mariner John Robert Moffet (c.1814-1881) in a Napoleonic pose - my husband's great great grandfather. In the earlier  census returns John was living in Stepney, and LImehouse,  London. but by 1871 he and his family had moved back to his roots in  South Shields on the north east coast. 

 

 

 

 

 This dubious looking character, I am pleased to say,  is no relation, as far as I know, but he featured on the right  in the photograph below of my great grandfather James Danson, sitting merry in the ancient stocks in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.  And are those berets worn by the two men seated on the left?  

 

 







                             

                  





 

Wearing a straw boater  is John Mason of New Jersey, USA who married my great great aunt Alice Rawcliffe. of Hambleton,  Lancahsire. They had six children in England, before emigrating in 1886-7  to Brooklyn, New York where they had a further five - three not surviving infancy. This photograph came from my third cousin Bonnie - finding her was a great blog success story and I am grateful to her for filling a gap in my family history.  

 

 

 

The three men in the front of this wedding picture area all carrying hats - panamas or trilbys?    My father (on the left) is looking very solemn at the wedding of this eldest brother Fred Weston at Leicester in 1929.  

 

And what about the style for young boys?  The hatwearing fashion started early.  Below is my uncle Fred Weston c,1909.  This hat looks more like a sombrero,  it is so huge for a wee boy.  I wondered at first if  it was meant to reflect the popular fashion of sailor outfits for children , but have not seen a coat like this before  in old photographs,

 

I remember my brother wearing a school cap like this, often perched on the  back of his head, Here is my husband' brother c.1936. 

 

                                   

 

 

A photograph below  from 1948 shows my husband in his school cap  with his father sporting a beret. They were on his motor bike, so such a headgear would be frowned upon in this health and safety era. 

 

 

 

I could not end a feature on men's hats without recollecting  themen's  hats seen on our holidays in southern Germany and Austria.   Here is a fun representation!  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Click  HEREE to find out what other bloggers have found

in this week's prompt photograph. 

 

 

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