A History of the Flat Cap

Come Tuesday 11^th March, Cheltenham Racecourse will be filled with a veritable sea of Flat Caps as racegoers don their finest attire for the Cheltenham Festival. You could readily conclude that the crowds lack imagination and prefer to blend in, and perhaps they do. However, there’s something about a hat—particularly a flat cap—that can (not always) impart an air of grace, dignity, and a sense of a good day’s work, and I love it.

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Simple, unassuming and inarguably very British flat caps are more often than not made from robust wool or tweed. They frame faces, complete outfits, and, like many hats, give off an air of respectability. With the rising popularity of the television show Peaky Blinders, we’ve seen a surge in flat caps everywhere as individuals are reminded of the hat’s enduring appeal. I suspect many people sometimes long for the days when donning your hat was as normal as putting on your shoes. So, when an event like the Cheltenham Festival comes around, it’s unsurprising that the crowds take full advantage of the opportunity and dig out their flat caps and enjoy the way it makes them feel. Cheltenham Festival really is about more than horse racing.

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• The flat cap can trace its roots back to fourteenth-century northern England. Think of a medieval Knight doffing his cap to a fair maiden. During this time, it was called a Bonnet, which lasted for about three hundred years before the term ‘cap’ came along.

• Traditionally made from wool or tweed, the flat cap is characterised by a thin, small and rounded stiff brim. It bears a similarity to the newsboy’s hat but lacks the hat’s roundness, multi-panelled construction and button on top.

• In 1571, an act of parliament was passed in support of the woollen trade in Great Britain. It decreed that all men aged six years and above had to wear woollen caps or hats to avoid paying a fine of around three farthings. The law didn’t apply to the nobility or gentlemen. By the time the act was repealed in 1597, the flat cap had become firmly established as the hat of the working class.

• The flat cap remained the uniform of the working classes for the next four hundred years. In a society where everyone wore a hat, social class dictated the kind of hat you wore. The flat cap was an immediate indicator of your social standing as a working-class member of society.

• By 1920, the flat cap had become a cornerstone of British fashion and was even adopted as part of school uniforms. It was worn by all social classes, from fruit and veg sellers to gentlemen to farmers. By the 1930s, it was declining in popularity as fashion began to be less restricted.

Present Day

In recent history, the flat cap’s popularity has ebbed and flowed, often driven by popular culture. It has, however, remained an enduring part of rural culture. It brings me great pleasure to see another resurgence of broader popularity for the flat cap, and what better place to see it than on many heads enjoying the thrill at Cheltenham Festival.

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