If you take a moment to look at Denton’s coat of arms, you’ll notice an animal that you may not at first associate with the town.

Back in the early 1900s, Denton was the largest industrial centre for hatting in Great Britain. In fact, at the height of the industry, there were over 80 hatting firms in the town, making the majority of Britain’s hats. Denton was best known for quality felt hats made from beaver and rabbit fur, hence the beaver on that coat of arms.

The earliest recording of hat manufacture in Denton goes back as far as 1702, when farmers made hats to supplement their poor wages, using small workshops attached to their farms. It wasn’t easy work and, as the industry developed, farmers took on workers to support them until, by 1825, 20 hatting farms had been established in the town.

There’s still a surviving example of where hatters would have worked in Denton during the 1800s, (now a private residence), a two-story planking shop and bow garrett. In the upstairs room, the hatter would have cleaned the fur and made the felt needed to make the hat, a process named bowing. Downstairs, the felt was moulded into a more hat-shaped form (the forming process) and boiled in a mixture of water and sulphuric acid to shirk and harden the hat (the planking process.)
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Mechanisation helped to increase hat production and the industry thrived until both world wars had obvious impacts. Men were recruited into the army, the overseas market collapsed, women were employed in roles supporting the war effort. Post-war, clothing styles changed too, with the wearing of hats seen as an old-fashioned look.

But even during this decline, in 1921, 41% of the working population of Denton worked in the hatting industry.

Today, hats are still made in Denton at Denton Hats, continuing the town’s proud hatting heritage.

(Not so) Fun Fact

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It’s often thought that the term ‘mad as a hatter’ derives from the result of the harmful chemicals that were used in the hatting process, which included the use of sulphuric acid and mercury. It’s true that these chemicals could have long-term, damaging impacts on the nervous systems of those working in the industry and, pre 1900, they only lived an average of just 45 years and 9 months.

However, the term actually existed before the industry did.

It derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word for the poisonous adder snake, ‘atter’ and people when bitten would become ‘mad as an atter’. Over time, this became associated with the damaging health aspects of the hatting industry.

In other words, the impact of being a hatter back then could be as damaging as being bitten by a poisonous snake. Making hats was a risky business!