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Kirstie Gibson, Keeping hat making alive in Luton, Occupational Medicine, Volume 66, Issue 1, January 2016, Page 78, https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqv181
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Before the Second World War, most people wore hats most of the time. The hat symbolized social status and work trade, examples being the bowler hat of the civil servant and city worker and the straw boater of the fishmonger and butcher [1]. The decline of hat wearing in the 1960s appears to be linked to the development of the motor vehicle where people did not need head protection from the elements and wearing a hat in modern vehicles is inconvenient [2]. There have been recent resurgences of hat wearing in the general male population with baseball caps and a new generation of flat cap wearers in younger men, although women’s hat wearing is still largely restricted to sun hats and religious and social events like weddings [3].
The Luton and Dunstable area has been the centre of hat making for over 200 years and started with straw hats that were probably developed in Italy and came to England in the 1600s [4]. The straw hat is made from a long length of straw plait that is sewn together to make a hat. The hat is shaped on a block, dyed, strengthened with shellac or gelatine and finished with lining and a ribbon trimming. Straw plaiting was undertaken by hand mostly by women and young girls working at home. They would plait all day and make an 18 metre long plait. There were high levels of child labour and children were sent to a plait school aged 3 or 4 years old; the schools were more like workshops with little general education available. Older children were expected to produce 27 metres a day. Conditions were cold and cramped and children developed sore lips from licking the straw. The 1867 Workshop Regulation Act banned the employment of children less than 8 years of age and required children from the ages of 8 to 13 to attend school for 10 hours a week. It was difficult for factory inspectors to enforce the law in the Luton area until 1875 [4].
