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Who didn’t get the ‘No Top Hats’ memo?
Berlin Secession exhibition, 1906. I guess Lovis Corinth didn’t get that memo?
Jury for the Berlin Secession 1908 exhibition. From the left: sculptors Fritz Klimsch and August Gaul, painters Walter Leistikow and Hans Baluschek, art dealer Paul Cassirer, painters Max Slevogt (sitting) and George Mosson (standing), sculptor Max Kruse, painters Max Liebermann (sitting), Emil Rudolf Weiß and Lovis Corinth.
from Wikipedia -
Merrick Toppers
“Top hats in 1872. A cabinet portrait of two men linking arms, possibly brothers or close friends, photographed in 1872 or 1873 at the “Merrick” photographic studio at 33 Western Road, Brighton, which was owned by Brighton entrepreneur Joseph Langridge (1812-1895).”
Yeah, ‘friends’, totally friends, LOL. *gaydar goes to max*. Again from the Photo History Sussex site, a treasure trove and even talks about the different types of top hats, something I’ve ranted on before about those doing costume drama using the wrong types…. -
Brighton Bathers 1863
An amazingly informal early photo of the Brighton Swimming Club c. 1863. probably by Benjamin William Botham. Funny thing is hipsters still pull funny poses like that one guy in Brighton, 150 years later…I suspect he was trying to do an ‘Indian’ or Buddhist/yoga pose – which seems incongruous for the time but as the site explains, it otherwise seems genuine.
More info here. (thanks to Duckie for the tip) -
This is basically my dream outfit.
Dapper Gent
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Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, c1907, sporstman and philanthropist. He died on the RMS Lusitania, a hero:
“Vanderbilt and his valet, Ronald Denyer, helped others into lifeboats, and then Vanderbilt gave his lifejacket to save a female passenger. Vanderbilt had promised the young mother of a small baby that he would locate an extra lifevest for her. Failing to do so, he offered her his own life vest, which he proceeded to even tie on to her himself since she was holding her infant child in her arms at the time. Many consider his actions to be very brave and gallant since he could not swim, he knew that there were no other lifevests or lifeboats available, and yet he still gave away his only chance to survive to the young mother and child….Vanderbilt’s fate was ironic as three years earlier he had made a last minute decision not to return to the U.S. on RMS Titanic [rival competitor to the Lusitania]
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What links the first ever murder on a train in 1864, and this hat?
Thomas Briggs, a city banker was murdered for his gold watch and spectacles on a train heading to Hackney – in fact he was thrown out of the train, and a pool of blood and a hat was found at the scene. No that isn’t the hat I mentioned, it gets more grisly. Women in the carriage next door (this is before trains had connecting carriages or communication cords) heard nothing but had small spots of blood on their dresses blown in probably as he was thrown out of the train… Eventually via the gold chain of the watch being sold to a pawnbroker, a rather strange and cirumstantial evidence of a cabbie called Death (!) and the hat left in the carriage Franz Muller was identified as a suspect (pictured) a german tailor who had fled to America on a boat.
When he was located he had Brigg’s watch on him, and his hat…but to disguise the hat he had cut it down by half and reattached the top. Bizarrely due to the sensationalist press around the trial, although Muller was hanged his hat lived on and became an instant popular hit – worn by the likes of Churchill. Today it seems to mostly live on in dressage but I’m guessing not many know the grisly history of the ‘Muller cut down’ top hat (although the book just released ’Mr Briggs Hat’ which I must read probably will again popularise this strange tale, and the fact that the circumstances and evidence was far from conclusive in modern terms…) – oh and the introduction in 1868 of the communication ’emergency’ cord which still exists in some form in trains today.
