TOP HATS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 14

TOP HATS

FASHIONS OF THE PAST / CENTURY,. ■ In the middle of the nineteenth century Mr. Henry Melton, 194, Regent street, was the best, and certainly the most fashionable, hatter in England, and he had a just pride in his calling. In Mr. Melton's day there were three types of top hats—the Harrington, the Anglesea, and the Wellington. The Harrington's peculiarity was a' square-cut brim turned up with. marked eacentricity. at the sides, "The Earl,of;Harangton himself was an eccentric man, "more eccentric indeed," to Mr. Melton's mind, "than became a man of taste." He used to test the quality of his hata by standing on them, which must have distressed Mr. Melton, and when walking in the garden he would wear a sage-green hat, so as not to frighten the birds. About the Marquis of Anglesea's top hats there was an exuberance of curve befitting a cavalry hero, though 'the brim was perfectly flat; while the Duke of Wellington characteristically favoured one " moderately yeoman or straight in the crown, and, though turned up smartly 'n the brim, in no particular, a marked hat." "Nothing," he notes, " could be more shocking than Mr. Leigh Hunt's hats, though I am told he has written a charming essay upon them,, except his friend Mr. Hazlitt's." Mr. Melton was, like all. enthusiast? in a .calling, an occasional experimenter. He invented a shooting hat, of which .the Prince Consort was quick to perceive the merits,. In the eyent of rain the upper side of the peak, could be reversed, and when brought over to the back the hat '* was completely covered with a japanned waterproofing." He failed, however, to popularise an invention 'by which an umbrella in wet weather could be screwed into the crown of the bat, thus freeing the hands. Though he once saw .three of his patrons .in them tacking about down Regent street during a squall of rain, only one old gentleman at Chertsey remained constant to the umbrella! hat, though i! he gloried in it."