The history of a straw hat has thus been traced down to the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Prior to this period all kinds of straws, grasses, and fibres of vegetables had been utilized in the operation, the only limit as to material being the growths peculiar to the locality in which hat-making was carried on, so one may see that, as each locality probably grew different kinds of fibres, the result of the finished hats was different.
This difference early gave rise to local nomenclature, perhaps the first collective term was “Leghorn” (circ. 1650. Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia, 1867). This now well-known variety of straw hat, woven first in braids and then cunningly put together in spiral sequence to the required shape, is not sewn overlapping, but with the braids laid edge to edge, and a fine tough straw or other fibre threaded through every other head on the impinging edges of the plait, and then drawn tight, so that the opposite heads fitting between and inside each other assumed the appearance of being woven in one piece, except that where the join took place, the thickness caused by the heads of the plait and the threading material, produced a ridge which, starting from the centre and running spirally to the edge of the brim, is one of the prominent characteristics of a “Leghorn.” This term, therefore, embodies, first, the place of origin; second, the material used; third, the method of using. If other local terms were thus early applied to straw productions, they have not, as far as the Continent of Europe is concerned, come down to modern times, all other names now in use (and they are legion) are the products of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.
All the materials used for plaitting up to about 1745 had been worked whole, that is, the fibre whether rush, grass or straw, was plaitted as it was grown, and consequently the hats of coarse weaving largely predominated; there being naturally a preponderance of the coarser parts of any vegetable growth.
Further, the manipulation of the bigger fibres was easier to fingers perhaps only infrequently devoted to the work, and therefore up to this period the majority of straw hats were thick and weighty. There were exceptions such as Leghorns that were plaitted from a variety of bearded wheat or rye (Triticum turgidum) grown in Tuscany. This was light in weight, comparatively tough, and of a fine natural golden colour. The upper part of the straw called Punta (or point) was used for all Leghorn hats, and also for making plait which was called Tuscan, from the locality of growth. When Tuscan was the only straw plait exported from Italy, Great Britain was one of the purchasers, and during the early part of the nineteenth century up to the repeal of the Corn Laws and the abolition of protective duties on other goods, British importers of Tuscan plait had to pay a duty of 8s. per lb. weight.
The desire to produce straw hats of less weight brought the bottom half of the straw column into use. That portion generally has a sheath, protecting it from the sun, which being stripped disclosed the under part of pearly white colour, this from being at the foot was called pedale, and although not so tough as the punta, was sufficiently so for plaitting purposes, and was very much lighter in weight. The first parcel of pedale plait arrived in Great Britain in 1878, and is supposed to have been purchased by Messrs. Carruthers & Co., of Luton.
But even then the quantity of fine pedale straws grown did not suffice for the increasing demands for straw hats.
The Italian straw, being so well established as the best material, caused workers to endeavour to find similar straw in other countries which had adopted straw hat making as a commercial undertaking.
It is probable that the climate of Scotland was not alone the cause for the migration of the Lorrainers; the search for fine white, light, straws, impossible to obtain in the cold north, may have drawn these operatives to the southern parts of England. Whatever the actual reason or reasons, it is certain that by 1624 the neighbourhood of South Bedfordshire (Dunstable), North-west Hertfordshire (Hemel Hempstead), and probably East Buckinghamshire was producing higher grade straw hats than any hitherto obtainable in the British Isles. The district comprises practically the whole of the Eastern ranges of the Chiltern Hills, an area of chalky subsoil. The discriminating Lorrainers quickly discovered the extreme beauty of colour of the Chiltern straws, and it is almost certain that for this reason alone the art of making plait braid was introduced into the locality, which from 1624 onwards has been undoubtedly the centre of the British straw hat industry.
Later on the straw plait making spread to portions of Essex and Suffolk, and although the plaits produced there were of much inferior quality and colour to those produced in the Chilterns, and, generally speaking, were not utilized for the highest class work, they formed a very useful adjunct to the plait stocks required by hat manufacturers when large quantities were needed. Another English centre for straw plaitting was Ripon in Yorkshire, the district around being the seat of quite a fair-sized industry. It is interesting to note this, for it seems to show that the Lorrainers in their southerly migration, had stopped en route, and had sampled the straws grown on the Yorkshire chalk.