Herbert Johnson (hatters)

Herbert Johnson is a London firm of hatters and cap makers. Founded in 1889 at 45 New Bond Street, the business was bought by the London firm of Swaine Adeney Brigg in 1996.

History

The firm takes its name from Herbert Lewis Johnson, born in the parish of Westminster St James, in 1856, the son of William Johnson,[1] a hatter from Newcastle upon Tyne who had moved to London, where he worked for the hat manufacturers Lincoln, Bennett & Co. of Piccadilly. Herbert was apprenticed to Lincoln, Bennett & Co. in 1872.

When his father died in 1889 he left £500 to Herbert, who likely put the money towards the setting up of his own hat shop that same year at 45 New Bond Street. This was achieved with financial backing and practical help from Edward John Glazier (1864–1939). Herbert Johnson moved to 38 New Bond Street in 1895, where the firm traded until 1975.

When Herbert retired in 1928 aged 72, he sold his interest to Edward Glazier, who turned the firm into a private limited company in 1929, registering the firm as Herbert Johnson (Bond Street) Limited.[2]

Output

As the United Kingdom Census 1901 makes clear, Herbert Johnson's profession then was that of "Hatters' Shop Keeper". The firm's line of business was to design and commission headgear from hatters in London and the hatting workshops of Luton and Stockport.

The firm made a name for its silk-velvet top hats. These hats had a "gossamer body", in other words one with a lightweight shell of fine muslin or cambric coated with shellac. The hatters Lincoln and Bennett, for whom Herbert's father had worked and where he served his own apprenticeship, were credited with developing this technology.

By the time of the World War I (1914–1918) much of the shop's business was taken up with hats for the military. Herbert Johnson devised a new cap with soft top that would be practical for field operations. This was adopted as the dress cap by many regiments.

Famous hats

In spite of being underwater for almost a hundred years, one of Herbert Johnson's collapsible silk top hats was recovered from the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which sank in the north Atlantic on the night of 14–15 April 1912. Surprisingly, the hat's label is still legible.[3]

The racing driver Lieutenant-Colonel Goldie Gardner commissioned Geoffrey Glazier to design a protective hat. Geoffrey did so, producing a lightweight but tough helmet. Sir Stirling Moss wore a white version of the Herbert Johnson racing helmet when he won the British Grand Prix at Aintree on 20 July 1957. He later sold the helmet to British Oxygen. This company had it covered in gold leaf and used as the Golden Helmet Trophy for the British Formula Ford Championships, which it sponsored in the 1970s. The helmet fetched £23,000 when it came up for auction at Bonhams in 2009.[4]

Other hats have been used in British television drama: Patrick Macnee's John Steed sported a Herbert Johnson bowler hat in The Avengers; Arthur Lowe's Captain Mainwaring wore a floating-bevel peaked cap in the sitcom Dad's Army; and Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who wore a Herbert Johnson felt fedora.

On the big screen, Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau wore a Herbert Johnson trilby in Blake Edwards's A Shot in the Dark (1964), the second of his Pink Panther series; the felt trilby gave way to a tweed one in later films. Clint Eastwood wore a high-crowned cotton twill trilby in White Hunter Black Heart (1990); and Jack Nicholson as the Joker wore a purple felt fedora in Batman (1989). Both these hats were by Herbert Johnson. There can be little doubt, however, that the most famous cinema exposure for Herbert Johnson was when Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones sported a broad-brimmed, high-crowned "Poet" felt hat in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).[5]

The musicians Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger both sported Johnson fedoras.[6]

industry	Manufacturing
fate	Bought by Swaine Adeney Brigg in 1996
successor	Swaine Adeney Brigg
founded	1889, 45 New Bond Street, London
founder	Herbert Lewis Johnson (1856–1942)
hq location city	London
hq location country	United Kingdom
key people	Herbert Lewis Johnson (1856–1942); Edward John Glazier (1846–1939); Geoffrey John Glazier (1899–1950); Maxwell Henry Glazier (1907–1984); Timothy Glazier (1934–2009); Robin Benson; Anthony Marangos
products	Hat and caps
website	herbertjohnson.co.uk

Herbert Johnson (hatters)

History

Output

Famous hats

Logo

Warrants of appointment

In public collections

Further reading

References