Hard hat
Category
Costume
Date
c. 1940
Materials
Thetford pulp ware, cotton, leather and steel
Order this imageCollection
Dolaucothi Estate, Carmarthenshire
NT 66547
Caption
Hard hats are a staple of the industrial workplace and have been protecting workers’ heads from knocks for over a century. Made by the Patent Pulp Manufacturing Co. Ltd in Thetford, Norfolk, this helmet is one of the many thousands worn underground by miners around the globe in the 1930s and 1940s. Shredded rags, wood chips and lime were pulped in a rag engine and the resulting mixture was moulded, compressed and baked to create a tough yet lightweight imitation leather. Inside, the hat is fitted with an adjustable cradle and headband, and it has a practical lamp bracket on the front. The origins of the gold mine at Dolaucothi are Roman, but it was not until the late 19th century that mining operations were revived at the site. They reached their peak during the 1930s, when over 150 people were employed. The technological advances that made goldmining in Wales financially viable also included the development of safety equipment such as protective hats, which replaced workers' cloth caps. This hard hat was originally worn by a miner at Halkyn, one of the largest and most important lead ore mines in Britain. Emma Slocombe
Summary
A group of three fibre hard hats. (Halkyn collection)
Provenance
Gifted into the care of the National Trust as part of the Halkyn collection in 1987 from the Halkyn Lead mine, North Wales.
References
Antrobus and Slocombe 2025: Helen Antrobus and Emma Slocombe, 100 Things to Wear: Fashion from the collections of the National Trust, National Trust 2025, p. 179.