AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HATS
Year: 1826

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
MAYHEW, of Union Street, Southwark, in the County of Suncy, Hat Manu-
facturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth
did, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventh day
of February, in the seventh year of His reign, give and giant unto me, the
said William Mayhew and WILLIAM WHITE, of Cheapside, in the City of
London, Hat Manufacturer, our executors, administrators, and assigns, His
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the said
William Mayhew and William White, our executors, administrators, and
assigns, during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend our Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF HATS," within England, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, in
such manner as to us, the said William Mayhew and William White, our
executors, administrators, and assigns, should in our discretion seem meet; in
which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if we, the said William
Mayhew and William White, or one of us, should not particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of our said Invention, and the manner in which
the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under our hands
and seals, or under the hand and seal of one of us, and cause the same to
be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calenda

page_text: months next and immediately ensuing the date of the said Letters Patent,
that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever
thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and
by the said recited Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Mayhew, do hereby declare that the nature of our said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
described and ascertained as follows (that is to say).-
than any ever yet made, the body and
same construction, and united in one
make an extra substance by adding
called the brim of the hat, by bowing
It having been a serious objection to silk hats that they were stubborn,
unyielding, and unpleasant to the head, and also that the edges of the tips soon
wore baie and looked bad, we have been long engaged in providing a remedy
for these defects, and have now invented a plan by which they are completely
obviated, and which is as follows:-We make the body or groundwork of the
hat with wool or stuff, upon the same principle as a beaver hat, the under
part of the brim to be covered with beaver or fui instead of silk as heretofore,
by which method the hat will be rendered as pliable and as comfortable
to the head as a beaver hat. We dye the body of the hat black, so
that the interior and exterior will be of the same colour, and the silk will
be placed on the crown and the upper part of the bim, and the hat will
altogether resemble a beaver hat more
under pnit of the bim being of the
body. With respect to the body, we
an extra quantity of stuff to that part
an extra piece in the way of stop wool, and felting it together over a hat
bason, or any other thing convenient for the purpose This will apply to
beaver as well as silk hat bodies. To obviate the objection with respect to
the edge of the silk hat wearing out so soon, we in the first place put a soft
substance on the edge of the tip underneath the silk, so as to be the better
prepared to resist a blow, as that part of the hat is most exposed, and more
likely than other parts to come in contact with hard substances The silk
hats hither to made have been covered with silk, shag, or plush, made on a
cotton back or ground; and cotton, being a vegetable substance, does not take
so good a dye as silk, so that when the silk is rubbed off the edge of a hat,
the cotton ground appears, and, not being of the same dye as the silk, looks
shabby long before the hat is worn out. We, therefore, in addition to placing
the soft substance, as described above, on the edge of the tip, make the shag
for that part of the hat with a silk ground or back instead of cotton; it will
then be at that part altogethoi silk, and all of the same dye, so that when

page_text: the upper silk or pile is worn off. the under silk, being of the same colour,
will not be observable, and will remove a very serious objection to silk bats.
We reserve to ourselves the right of covering the upper part with cotton
instead of silk, should we deem it necessary.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Mayhew, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventh day of August, One thousand eight
hundred and twenty-six.