The Man in the Bowler Hat
London, 2023
There was a time when every man wore a hat. It is not that long ago. My grandfather wore a hat, my dad did for the first half of his working life. You still see the occasional hat, but if we exclude baseball caps and sun-hats, it is a rare thing. Hats used to be symbols of social status, from dock workers to captains of industry, they all had their particular style of hat.
When I was little and living south of London, there were still a few men in three piece, pin-striped suits with rolled up umbrellas, a folded newspaper under their arm. They wore bowler hats. The proper name for this type of hat is actually a Coke Hat. According to Lock and Co. the famous hatters in London. They made the first such hat in 1849 for Edward Coke, the younger brother of the Earl of Leicester. He was looking for a close-fitting, hard hat for his gamekeepers to protect them when they rode horses and carts around the estate. It later became the workman’s protective hat for a period of time, before it was adopted in the city by those in the uniform of the day.
I was in Lock & Co. a couple of years ago. When I entered the shop, where I have bought a number of hats over the years, there was a gentleman in the shop. He was perfect. He was in his three piece blue pin-striped suit, mirror-polished shoes, rolled up umbrella…. He was picking out a new Coke Hat, as the one he was wearing was getting a little tired with a few scuff marks. I paid for my hat, and decided to do something I rarely do. I left the shop and took up position between two parked cars outside. I prayed for a gift from the photography gods.
As my hat-man exited the shop and drew the door closed behind him, I made my photograph. And then I was offered a second gift, as he turned in my direction, unaware of my presence. I made the second photograph (at the top). In 2023, when I found the man in the bowler hat, he was rare, very rare. A little like spotting a unicorn in the forest!
London, 2023
I recently came across a poem, which I have had attached to my two Coke Hat photographs for some time:
The Man In The Bowler Hat - by A. S. J. Tessimond*
I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man: The man who sat on your right in the morning train: The man who looked through like a windowpane: The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting Morning pipe smoke. I am the man too busy with a living to live, Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch: The man who is patient too long and obeys too much And wishes too softly and seldom. I am the man they call the nation's backbone, Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay: The Man they label Little lest one day I dare to grow. I am the rails on which the moment passes, The megaphone for many words and voices: I am the graph diagram, Composite face. I am the led, the easily-fed, The tool, the not-quite-fool, The would-be-safe-and-sound, The uncomplaining, bound, The dust fine-ground, Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round.
I find this devastating and dark. The poem just keeps digging, keeps speaking to the mindless everyday of everyone out there who keeps the lights on, the busses running, the hospitals and schools operating. The streets swept, the roads paved and the potholes filled. The millions of invisible workers, who make our lives possible. These are the anonymous masses we see on the Underground, Metro, or bus twice each day. Day after day. Year after year. And think this post started with a hat!
In the spirit of the The Man in the Bowler Hat, here are a few more men in hats.
Please enjoy…
Lille, 2012
Barcelona, 2017
Lille, 2015
Fez, 2016
Beijing, 2006
Lille, 2014
Panzano, 2017
Munich, 2023
My final photograph today is below. It is of a sign that used to hang at the entrance to Parliament in Denmark. It is no longer there. I don’t know when exactly it came down. This is the last time I saw a man wearing a hat giving directions. Looking dapper…!
Copenhagen, 2011
*A. S. J. Tessimond passed away in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage. He was 59. He had been disqualified from military service in WWII. He was found to be bipolar and was given electric shock therapy, which was customary at the time. His poetry was first published while he was at university in Liverpool in the early 1920s.
Until next time…..
Thanks Soren, good article and excellent photos. I often think of hats as my young life began in Scotland and everyone, well all the men, wore hats then-early 50’s. I almost always wear a hat; either a baseball hat or a flat Scottish cap. I have a fedora and similar hat but find i’m a bit embarrassed to wear them as no one in this mountain town wears anything other than a baseball hat and i feel rather out of place. Still, i remember being in a hat shop in Berkeley, CA years ago where my wife bought me an expensive Scottish hat and i told the man helping us that i was often embarrassed to wear hats other than baseball hats as no one else did. He sorta chuckled (he was wearing a beautiful hat although i don’t remember what) and said, “Don’t ever be embarrassed at wearing a hat. It is an expression of yourself, be proud to wear a hat whenever you like.” I remember those words to this day and, occasionally take my fedora out of the box and wear it - it's a beautiful had!
Wonderful post, Søren! I remember my grandfather wearing a fedora hat, and I love the hats people wore in classic films from the 40s and 50s. The poem is amazing, and I thought this line was especially powerful (and sad): “I am the man too busy with a living to live.”