Christy's famous hat factory in Park Lane, which once employed a quarter of Frampton Cotterell residents, is now a listed building and a spacious house. Christy's built their factory in 1812 in an area where hatting was already a major cottage industry The main business was trading with the West Indies, making large brimmed felt hats for slaves harvesting sugar cane in the rainy season. The ten gallon hat should really have been known as a Christy - and might have been, but for a nifty bit of piracy An American hat maker called J. B. Stetson liked the wide brimmed high crowned hat so much he started making his own. Christy's were furious.
Bristol University lecturer John Moore, said: 'Few people know that the ten gallon hat was invented in Frampton Cotrerell but it's well documented in the records of the hatmakers who built and owned the factory last century J. B. Stetson fought a long patent case with Christy's - and lost.
The result was that he had to pay a licence fee to market the famous Stetson hat' Stetson might have lost, but he won in the long term. That style of hat is known universally as a Stetson, and Christy's role is completely forgotten. So is the company's link with the Mounties. The famous pointy hat, later adopted by the Boy Scouts and a television lager commercial, was another Christy invention and is still in wide use across the world today.
But again no one remembers who developed it. Christy's were also partly responsible for a much nastier sideline of history The company used poisonous mercury in the felt making process, while keeping windows tightly closed to avoid the fine rabbit fur blowing away The fumes so affected the workers that the saying as mad as a hatter' was born. Hat workers sometimes went 'as mad as a hatter' from the poisonous fumes from the feltmaking process. Lewis Carroll even picked it up for a character in Alice in Wonderland.
But of all the Stetson wearers, cowboy film star Tom Mix was the crowning glory. On a visit to Bristol in 1938, he wore the biggest ( and silliest ) Stetson ever seen - at least a 20 gallon hat. A bit impractical for hiding behind rocks or saloon bar doors but the huge crowds thought he was wonderful. No one asked Christy's what they thought.
The village of Frampton Cotterell home of the cowboy hat
All the cowboy heroes on television should be wearing Christy's rather than Stetsons. It seems a bit bad, considering Christy won a legal battle to decide who invented the broad brimmed Western hat. John Wayne never knew it but he owed a lot to Frampton Cotterell. So did Randolph Scott, Tom Mix and every other rootin' tootin' gunslinger who ever toted a shootin' iron through Dodge City For one of the most enduring legends of the Wild West was born in the West of England ? The famous ten gallon hat - white for goodies, black for baddies - was invented in the old cow town of Frampton Cotterell.
Hat Facts - Frampton Cotterell was chosen for a hat factory because it had clean water, coal, skilled workers - and an easy supply of rabbit fur. The area was such an important centre that the Hatters union had its headquarters at nearby Watley's End. Felt hats were made from a mixture of fur, chopped wool, mercury and size. They were the only waterproof hats until oilskins were invented in the 1820s.
The factory's best known product was the beaver - an ordinary broad-brimmed hat covered with beaver fur, imported from Canada through the Port of Bristol. The industry was killed off in 1871 by the new fashion for silk toppers and the rocketing price of imported beaver fur. At one time, the old factory was used as a home for Roman Catholic nuns.
' A ten gallon hat is often thought to be large enough to hold ten gallons of water. this is not true ( unless you have an exceptionally large head ). The gallon in 'ten gallon hat' derives from the Spanish galn meaning braid. So a ten-gallon hat is a hat with a braiding around the brim'.
Stetson hats or Stetsons, often known simply as cowboy hats, refers to a brand name and not a type of hat. The John B. Stetson Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, founded by John B. Stetson (1830..1906, USA), is the manufacturer of some of the more famous variants of the cowboy hat: a felt hat with a tall crown and very wide brim. It functions to protect its wearer's eyes from the sun, and can also double as a water bowl.
There are two versions of the history associated with the Stetson hat. The first is a version, that although the most widely held belief, is in fact based on legend. This version states that in the 1860s Stetson created a rugged hat for himself made from thick beaver fur felt while panning for gold in Colorado. According to legend, Stetson invented the hat while on a hunting trip while showing his companions how he could make cloth out of fur without weaving. Stetson made an unusually large hat from fur-felt he made from hides collected on the trip, and wore the hat for the remainder of the expedition. Although initially worn as a joke, Stetson soon grew fond of the hat for its ability to protect its wearer from the elements. It had a wide brim for protection from the elements, a high crown to keep an insulating pocket of air on the head, and a waterproof lining so the hat could be used to carry water.
The hat was however more popular in the U.S. The hat was first sold in Central City, Colorado in 1865 in a style called the 'Boss of the Plains,'.
In 1869 Stetson returned to Philadelphia to found his hat company, which produced high quality hats for outdoors use. By 1886 Stetson's hat company was the largest in the world, and had mechanized the hat-making industry.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Red Serge dress uniform includes a Stetson with a flat brim. The Stetson was first used unofficially by the North West Mounted Police, in place of the traditional white pith helmet. The colour for the RCMP Stetson is sometimes referred to as 'Belgian Belly', it is a reddish buff, pastel like colour of the underfur of the Belgian Hare. It is also a very little used 'second name' for the Stetson.
In the Second Boer War, the flat brimmed Stetson became the standard issue of the second Canadian Contingent, becoming recognized throughout the British Empire as a symbol of Canada. The Stetson hat became a part of the uniform of the Royal North West Mounted Police, which later became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Stetson Hats official website
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