Figure 1.--This unidentified English boy wears a briad-brimmed hat with an uptutted brim. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1870s. His mother and her friends have an impressuce array of hats.

We see English boys wearing a wide range of hats commonly called sailor hats. They vary wih both the width of the brim, its configurationm, and shape of the crown. There wee also features like hat bands, chinstraps, and streamers. Wide-brimmed sailor hats are probably the headwear most associated with the Victorian sailor suit, but the sailor suits were worn with other headwear, especially saiklor caps. And the wide-brimmed hats were worn with with many other outfits besides sailor suits. We see many examples in the photogaohic record. A good example is an unidentified well-to-do boy about 1895. We see these wide-brimmed hats in various styles. Variations appeared in both the crown and brim. We notice both flat and rounded crowns. There were also brims of different widths and configuration. Here we note great variety. The classic sailor hat is probably the wide-brimmed hat. These seem to have been mostly worn by younger boys. The brims were often done straight out. Others were done turned up, rather like a bowl. The boy herev is agood excample (figure 1). After the turn of the 20th century, especially in the 1910s, some of these hats were worn with turned-down brims or at least part of the brim turned down. Wide-brimmed hats were not very practical for boys. Perhaps a little more practical for girls who were not as active. But these hats were not just for formal events in which the children were not very active. A good example is William Steggall out on a family outing. One classic example of a classic broad-brimmed hat is Ernest Bartlett in 1904.

Created: 11:24 PM 7/10/2023
Last updated: 11:24 PM 7/10/2023