Felt-Hatting in Bristol & South Gloucestershire

The complete story of a leading craft industry from 1530-1909

‘Immensely impressive scholarship, well written and thoroughly researched.’

Thesis: Free download • 0000 0004 2731 3015 • PhD
727 pages A4 • 122 figures and maps • 14 tables • 71 appendices
Published by the British Library • May 2012

Plaudits for Felt-Hatting

Chris Heal’s immensely impressive scholarship has identified more than 6,000 hatters and their businesses scattered throughout the region’s towns and villages … reminding us of the importance hats once held in English daily life and the considerable contribution the industry once made to the national economy … Heal traces not only the rise and fall of the industry over three centuries but its culture of association, traced through the development of benefit clubs and unions … and considers wider social issues in the hatting community; its drinking and recreational customs, its connection to Methodism, and the effect of the manufacturing process upon the health of its workers. ‘Stubborn, well-organised, drunk, illiterate, poor, diseased and disposed to violence as they may be,’ he concludes, ‘the feltmakers of South Gloucestershire supplied work of high quality’ … The real value of these booklets lies not only in what they reveal about the organisation of the hatting trade, but in their strength as a case study of the response of a well-organised craft industry to economic and social change from its early modern origins to the industrial age. They are well written and very thoroughly researched.

Professor Steve Poole

Until well into the 20th century no man, rich or poor, would be about his business without a hat, and although millions of felt hats were made each year for the home market and millions more for export, today it is a largely forgotten industry. Also forgotten is the important role that felt hatmaking played in this part of the West Country for over 300 years, employing many thousands of men in the second largest manufacturing industry in south Gloucestershire after the cloth industry. Being always a ‘cottage’ industry, dominated by local families who left no substantial industrial or technological remains, it has consequently been overlooked by later researchers. This has now been thoroughly rectified by Chris Heal’s study.

Mike Chapman

Articles / Publications

‘The Forgotten Gloucestershire Hatters of ’41’, Gloucestershire Family History Society Journal, No. 113, June 2007, pp. 22-27; repeated in Journal of the Bristol and Avon Family History Society, No. 129, September 2007, pp. 31-33.

‘Betty Brothers – Bristol Hatters’, Journal of the Bristol and Avon Family History Society, No. 134, December 2008, pp. 61-65.

‘The Hatters of Bristol’, Heritage & Archaeology, South Gloucestershire Heritage Forum, Autumn 2009, pp. 10-11.

‘Manufactories of Art: From Moctezuma to Constable: Henry Christy, Henry Vaughan and the Hatters of South Gloucestershire’, British Museum, Spring 2010

‘Palm oil and elephant tusks: The Merchant Kings of Bristol’, The Regional Historian, Autumn 2010, pp. 14-19.

‘Knotty problems: Love and rabbits among the archives’, Avon Local History & Archaeology, Winter 2010

‘The arrival of the London hat masters in South Gloucestershire after 1750’, Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society Journal, 2010, pp. 18-32 (winner, biennial BIAS Brunel Prize)

‘Sites of the Felt Hat Industry, Bristol & South Gloucestershire’, BGAS Transactions, July 2012

‘Alcohol, Madness and a Glimmer of Anthrax: Disease among the Felt Hatters in the Nineteenth Century’, Textile History, Vol. 44, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 95-119.

‘Watley’s End and Frampton Cotterell Hatters’ Heritage Trail’, with Watley’s End Residents Association, March 2013, 40 pages

Free download: https://www.southglos.gov.uk/documents/Hatters-Trail.pdf

Reviews

Steve Poole, The Regional Historian, Issue 27, Summer 2013, pp. 45-6

Talks

‘The Great Hatting Strike of 1834-5: Christy’s foul design to crush the liberties of the hatters‘: Winterbourne Medieval Barn Trust AGM, 24 July 2013

‘Madness, Alcohol and a glimmer of Anthrax, Hatters & The Enclosure of Frampton Cotterell’: Frampton Cotterell & District Local History Society, 21 November 2012

‘Hope and Pain; God and the Christys: The Brief Lives of the Watley’s End Hatters, 1770-1870’: Watley’s End Residents’ Association, 20 November 2012

‘Alcohol, madness and a glimmer of anthrax’: University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, 22 May 2012

‘The dog that didn’t bark in the night’: University of Southampton, Chawton, 1-2 March 2012

‘Alcohol, madness and a glimmer of anthrax’: Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 6 February 2012

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Almondsbury Local History Society, 5 December 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Filton Historical Group, 26 October 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Weston-Super-Mare Family History Society, 25 October 2011

‘Alcohol, madness and a glimmer of anthrax’: University of Winchester, 20 October 2011

‘Hatting’: Downend Local History Society, 4 October 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Sodbury & District Historical Society, 9 September 2011

‘Mad with drink: Garnishes and combinations among the felt hatters’: CHORD Conference, University of Wolverhampton, Telford, 7-8 September 2011

‘The slave trade, felt hats, & Bristol’s industrial hinterland’: Post-Medieval Archaeology Annual Conference, Isle of Man, 2-4 September 2011

‘The Mysterie of the Feltmaker’s Bow: An apostolic investigation, AD 36-1996’: Aspects of Culture, University of Bristol, 6 June 2011

‘Manufacturing Myth: Madness, riot and cowboys’: Cardiff University, 17-18 May 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: The Feltmakers Company of London, 17 May 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: South West Gas Historical Society, Warmley, 13 April 2011

‘Village against City: The Struggle for Retail Power’: CHORD Conference, University of Wolverhampton, 25 March 2011

BIAS Brunel Prize Award, Keynsham, 17 March 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Olveston Parish Historical Society, 2 March 2011

‘No Coats for our Backs’: Christy’s & the Hatters’ Strikes of the 1830s (a reconstruction)’: Frampton Cotterell & District Local History Society, 16 February 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Bristol & Avon Family History Society, Southmead, 14 February 2011

‘The Hatters of Bristol’: BIAS, Keynsham, 27 January 2011

‘Felt hats and the slave trade’: Colonial and postcolonial workshop, University of Bristol, 10 December 2010

‘Felt hats and the slave trade’: Postcolonial Seminar, University of Kent, 18 November 2010

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Probus Club of Downend, 29 October 2010

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Frenchay Village Museum, 14 October 2010

‘The Hatters of Bristol & South Gloucestershire’: Kingswood Local History Society, 7 September 2010

‘The Hatting Industry of the South Gloucestershire Area’: Yate Heritage Centre, 22 June 2010

‘The felt hats of Bristol and the West African slave trade’: Colonial & Postcolonial Reading Group, Bristol University, 27 May 2010

‘Factories Without Machines, 1750-1875’: UWE Regional History Centre, 28 April 2010

‘Hatting Families in Watley’s End’: Watley’s End Residents’ Association: 23 January 2010

‘The Hatting Industry of Frampton Cotterell and Winterbourne’: Frampton Cotterell & District Local History Society, 20 January 2010

‘Manufactories of Art: From Moctezuma to Constable: Henry Christy, Henry Vaughan and the Hatters of South Gloucestershire’: British Museum, January 2010

‘When & why did the feltmakers begin work in sixteenth-century Bristol?, Spanish heritage, organisation & innovation’: Bristol University history postgraduates: 8 December 2009

‘Mad Hatters – from Shakespeare to vote rigging in Bristol’s felt-hat industry’: Staff & supporters, Blaise Castle, Bristol, 17 October 2009

‘Bristol & South Gloucestershire’s Hatters’: Staff, Stockport Hat Museum, 22 July 2009

‘Bristol & South Gloucestershire Hatting Industry: Research Techniques’: UWE MA History students, 11 May 2009

‘The Hatters of Watley’s End’: Watley’s End Residents’ Association, 25 March 2009

Assistance

Jill Cook, Senior Curator of Archaeology of Human Origins, British Museum: ‘In Pursuit of the Unity of the Human Race: the Life, Work and Collecting of Henry Christy (1810-1865)’ at Turquoise, Henry Christy and museum collections, British Museum: 11 December 2009