CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS ON HATS, CAPS, AND BONNETS
Year: 1836

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
COCKERELL HOGAN, of 7, Castle Street, Holborn, in the County of Middlesex,
Light Hat Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth;
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of March, in the sixth year of His reign,
did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Thomas Cockerell Hogan, his especial licence, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said Thomas Cockerell Hogan, my exors, adiñors; and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Thomas Cockerell Hogan, my exors,
admors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time
to time and at all times during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales; and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS ON
HATS, CAPS, AND BONNETS;" in which said: Letters Patent is contained' a. proviso
that I, the said Thomas Cockerell Hogan, shall cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being there-
unto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Cockerell Hogan, do hereby declare that my said Invention of "Cer

page_text: tain improvements on hats, caps, and bonnets," and the manner in which the
same are to be carried into effect, are fully set forth and described in the
following Specification thereof, that is to say:-
My improvements consist, firstly, in constructing a supporting and distending
body, which I call the inner bat, cap, or bonnet, of horse hair, to form a
flexible elastic substratum, upon which to apply an outer covering, which I
denominate the outer hat, cap, or bonnet, made of silk, cotton, merton down,
beaver, fur, or other substances commonly used for the exterior surface of
hats, caps, or bonnets; and, secondly, in applying and cementing the said
outer covering on upon the said supporting and distending substratum by
means of the solutions of caoutchouc now commonly sold in various shops in
London and elsewhere, or by means of any other clastic cement suitable for
the purpose of uniting the said outer covering to the inner substratum, so as to
form together an elastic hat, cap, or bonnet, capable of yielding to accidental
external pressure, and of recovering its original form on the pressure being
removed; and, thirdly, in using whalebone or whalefin, cut into hair-like fila-
ments as a substitute for the horse hair, and in weaving, platting, or braiding
the same with horse hair and with threads of wool, silk, cotton, flax, or other
vegetable fibre to form a fabric or texture from which the said distending body
of a hat, cap, or bonnet may be made; and, fourthly, in variously combining
horse hair or other hair with threads of wool, silk, cotton, flax, or other vegetable
fibre, filaments of whalebone or whalefin, of willow or other tough and
flexible woods in the formation of a fabric or texture from which I may
make my said supporting and distending substratum or inner hat, cap, or
bonnet; and, fifthly, in forming a distending substratum or inner hat, cap,
or bonnet by weaving, platting, or braiding of horse hair or filaments of
other herein-before mentioned substances, singly or combined, upon a block of
the requisite figure; and, sixthly, in forming an entire hat, cap, or bonnet
of horse hair alone, or of horse hair intermixed with threads of silk,
wool, flax, or cotton, by weaving, platting, or braiding the same upon
a block of the requisite figure. In carrying the first, third, and fourth
parts of my said improvements into effect, I prefer weaving the fabric in
sheets of the best long horse hair, both in the warp and in the woof, as afford-
ing the greatest degree of elasticity for a given weight of material. But
sometimes I weave, plat, or braid, or otherwise manufacture into sheets or pieces,
the fabric of alternate or intermixed threads of silk and horse hair, of worsted
and hor-e-hair, of cotton and horse-hair, or of flax and horse-hair, both in the
woof and in the warp; and sometimes I fabricate the sheets or picces of a
mixture of threads of cotton or flax, of horse-hair or other hair, and of

page_text: filaments of whalebone, whale-fin, willow, or other tough woods, in such various
combinations and proportions as fancy may dictate; and sometimes I make
the fabric of thin silk, woollen, linen, cotton stuff, or felted cloth, and combine
with it by sewing or cementing a sufficient quantity of horse-hair or other
hair, or other elastic filaments, to obtain the requisite degree of elasticity in
the fabric. In forming my distending body from any of these fabrics or
textures, it is obvious that various modes of cutting out and putting together
must be adopted according to the ever varying fashions of the hat, cap, or
bonnet intended to be produced, or according to the quality, with respect to
lightness, flexibility, waterproof, or ventilating nature that may be required.
The details of one mode of proceeding in making up a hat of the ordinary
appearance worn by men will suffice to put the skilful hatter into possession of the
means of adaptation to the demands of fashion or convenience. In making up a
distending body of a hat of that kind, I cut out from a sheet or piece of one of
the above described textures or fabrics for the upper or flat part of the crown, a
circular or oval piece, as fashion may require, and cement with the solution of
caoutchouc, a ribbon, tape, or strip of linen or cotton cloth around the edge to
form a selvage for the more secure sewing of the flat piece to the side or cylin-
drical piece, and I cut the side piece of a length about two or three inches greater
than the circumference of the crown of the hat, and of a width equal to the
height of the crown; and I cement as aforesaid along the sides of the piece or
the parts destined to become the top and bottom of the crown a ribbon, tape, or
strip as before described, to form selvages, whereby the side piece may be
firmly sewed to the flat top piece and to the brim of the hat, and in forming
the side piece into a cylinder, I make its ends to lap one over the other, and I
make them together by means of the aforesaid elastic cement; and sometimes.
I further strengthen the place of junction by a strip of thin muslin gauze, or
other thin fabric, cemented on the overlapping; or I cover the whole of the
crown with a layer of thin muslin or gauze cemented on; and I make the
brim of the inner hat of one thickness or more of any of the above-described
textures or fabrics, and one or more layers of cotton or linen cloth, or thin felt,.
or other suitable fabric, and mould the same upon a block of the requisite
figure, and I cover the inner and outer edges of the brim with tape or ribbon
cemented on to form selvages as herein-before described, in respect to the
crown pieces. I then sew the crown to the inner selvage of the brim, and fix
the whole on a block to support the body in a proper figure. But when the
brim is required to be firm, and the crown only to be elastic, I construct the
brim in the usual way, and unite it with a crown made according to my im-
provements as herein before and after described. Having completed my dis-

page_text: tending body, and having previously cut out and sewed together in the usual way
and of proper dimensions an outer covering of silk, cotton, merton down, or other
beaver-like textures, I take it, or I take a beaver hood prepared in the ordinary
manner, and I lay on with a brush a coat of the solution of caoutchouc upon the
flat part of the crown of the body, and immediately apply to it the inside of the
flat part of the crown of the outer hat, the outer hat being at that time
turned inside out. I then lay the solution around a portion of the cylindrical
part of the crown of the body, and draw about the same proportion of the
cylindrical part of the outer hat over it, and so proceed until the outer
cylinder is drawn over, and cemented to the inner, in which condition I
wind around all the cylindrical part a bandage to keep the outer hat in
contact with the inner, and I place the whole upside down upon a flat table
to keep the flat parts of the crown in contact with each other, where it
remains for an hour or more, according to the drying quality of the solution
used, after which I cement the brims of the outer and inner hats together,
and also a piece of the outer substance on the under side of the brim, and
when the whole is dry, the hat is finished off in the usual manner, according to
the skill and judgment of the workman in the heating and using of his irons,
card brush, and other usual implements. In the case of using elastic cements,
rendered adhesive by heat, as, for instance, oil, varnish, or other cements
made of slowly drying compounds, the varnish is laid upon the inner hat, and
exposed until dry, when the outer hat is put on over the inner hat, and the
adhesion produced by the application of a hot iron in the manner commonly
practised.
In carrying into effect the fifth part of my improvements upon a hat of the
ordinary figure and medium size, I take horse hairs of about three-quarters
of a yard or more in length, and place a sufficient number of them in a loom
to form, a warp, say seven inches wide. I then commence introducing the
woof, also of hairs three quarters of a yard or more in length, at three inches
and a half from the middle of the length of the warp, weaving together at first
only a few of the middle hairs of the warp with the middle part of the hairs
of the woof, leaving the ends of the woof banging down equidistant on cach
side of the warp. In proportion as the woof increases in quantity, so I
include and weave in with it a greater width of the warp, and I
the
gradual increase so that when three inches and a half of the woof is woven in,
the texture or part of the warp and woof woven together shall have the
form of a semicircle of three inches and a half radius. I then decrease the
remaining three inches and a half of woof in the width of its union with
the warp
in the same proportion as the first half was increased, so that when
manage

page_text: seven inches of the woof is woven in, the texture shall form a complete circle
of seven inches diameter in the middle of the length of the hairs, leaving the
remaining parts of the hairs unconnected with each other, but projecting
nearly equidistant from the circumference of the circular texture. In forming
the hat body I take a piece woven as last described, and lay the circular
part upon the end of a hat block of its own diameter, and nail down upon
it a disc of wood or metal of the same diameter, with nails so fine and
pointed as not to injure the woven texture of horse hair. I then plat or
braid the loose hairs together all round the cylindrical part of the block, after
which I place a bandage around the lower part of the platted hair, and set
the whole on a brim block. I then finish platting the remaining ends of the
hairs, so as to make them lie upon the block, and form the brim of the body,
around which brim I cement a binding of ribbon or tape. And sometimes,
instead of platting the hairs together over the cylindrical surface of the
block, I lay them along the cylinder parallel with the axis, and weave them
together with a woof of silk or other thread passing in a spiral course around
the cylinder, and when I arrive at the brim, I lay the hairs in a direction
radiating from the axis, and continue the working in of the woof in a diverging
spiral course to the extremity of the brim, around which extremity I cement à
binding of ribbon or tape, as herein-before described. The body thus formed
is to be covered in the same manner as herein-before described for the bodies.
cut out of woven, platted, or braided sheets or pieces, and sewed together;
and I also make an entire hat, cap, or bonnet on a block in this manner, to
be worn without any covering except a binding around the brim.
And I hereby declare that I do not lay claim to the use of horse hair,
silk, woollen, linen, or cotton thread, filaments of whalebone, whale fin, or of
wood, or of any of their combinations, for constructing the outer or conspi-
cuous surface of a hat, cap, or bonnet, except in the case of the horse hair
woven, platted, or braided upon a block, according to the sixth part of my
said improvements; but I limit my claim to the combining of the elastic
properties of horse hair with threads of silk, wool, cotton, linen, or with
filaments of whalebone, whalefin, or of willow or other tough woods, as herein-
before described, for the making of a body to support and distend an outer
texture of silk, cotton, merton down, beaver, or other substances affording
the appearance of beaver nap, or of plush, shag, fur, or velvet, and for
cementing any of these outer textures on upon the elastic supporting body
by means of common solutions of caoutchouc or other elastic cements, whereby
I produce a hat, cap, or bonnet capable of yielding to accidental pressure
from without, and of recovering its original figure by its own elasticity wher