An “Anthony Eden" hat (or simply an “Anthony Eden”) was a silk-brimmed, black felt Homburg of the kind favoured in the 1930s by Anthony Eden, later 1st Earl of Avon (1897-1977), a Cabinet Minister in the British National Government, who was Lord Privy Seal 1934-5 and Foreign Secretary 1935-8. Homburg is a stiff felt hat with a crease along the length of the crown and no pinches, and has a brim with the edge sharply turned up all the way around. ... Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (June 12, 1897– January 14, 1977), British politician, was Foreign Secretary during World War II and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1950s. ... Members of the Cabinet are in bold face. ...

The “Anthony Eden” (rarely “Eden”) was not marketed as such and the name was purely informal, but the use of the term was widespread, entering dictionaries and phase books (for example, it was still listed in the 17th edition of Brewer in 2005). It came into particular vogue among civil servants and diplomats in Whitehall and, to that extent, rather belied the stereotypical view, that lasted until well after the Second World War, of civil servants as a “bowler hat” brigade. Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - sometimes referred to simply as Brewers - is a reference work containing definitions and explanations of many famous phrases, allusions and figures, whether historical or mythical. ... Whitehall, London, looking south towards the Houses of Parliament. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... The bowler hat is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown created for Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester of Holkham, in 1850. ...

Anthony Eden in the mid 1930s

Image File history File links Anthony_Eden_Hat. ... Image File history File links Anthony_Eden_Hat. ...

Eden's style

As a relatively young politician (at 38, the youngest Foreign Secretary since Pitt the Younger in the late 18th century) among mostly much older men, Eden appeared fashionably dressed, even flamboyant. In 1936 the American magazine Time referred to his "pin-stripe trousers, modish short jacket and swank black felt hat", worn during a diplomatic mission to the League of Nations in Geneva ^[1]. Many remarked upon Eden's “film star” looks, even as late as the 1950s when he was Prime Minister. The journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (who was not an admirer of Eden) recalled that, among other qualities, "an elegant appearance and an earnest disposition ... equipped him for dazzling advancement ... An astrakhan collar became him. What came to be known as an Anthony Eden hat grew on heads like his" ^[2]. Eden's biographer D.R. Thorpe commented on a photograph of him, arriving in Russia by train in hat and fur-lined coat in 1935, that "it seemed to some as if Tolstoy's Count Vronsky [a glamorous character in the novel Anna Karenina] were alighting at the platform" ^[3]. Less prosaically, W F Deedes, a Minister in Eden's Government, remarked half a century later that, in the modern vernacular, Eden would have been called a "smoothie" ^[4]. William Pitt the Younger (28 May 1759–23 January 1806) was a British politician during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ... The Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, built between 1929 and 1938, was constructed as the Leagues headquarters. ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: Genève //, German: //, Italian: Ginevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich), and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ... Malcolm Muggeridge (March 24, 1903–November 14, 1990) was a British journalist, author, media personality, soldier, spy and Christian scholar. ... Coat of arms of Count Leo Tolstoy This article is about the Tolstoy family; for the famous novelist, see Leo Tolstoy. ... Anna Karenina (Анна Каренина) is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy first published in periodical installments from 1875 to 1877 . ... The Right Honourable William Francis Deedes, Baron Deedes, KBE, MC, DL, PC (born 1 June 1913) is a veteran British journalist and a former politician. ...

The "glamour boys"

In the period after his resignation from Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet in 1938 and the outbreak of war in 1939, when he returned to Government as Dominions Secretary, Eden and his acolytes, who, broadly speaking, favoured a tougher stance against Hitler and Mussolini, were often referred to as “the glamour boys” ^[5]. Some contemporary observers detected a "prima donna" streak in Eden's appearance; for example, the elderly Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (1871-1940) thought him "vain as a peacock and all the mannerisms of a petit maître [in the sense of a dandy or fop]" ^[6]. However, there is little objective evidence that Eden was unduly vain about his clothes; he merely dressed well. As for his Homburg, which Deedes noted that he wore at an angle ^[7], his official biographer Sir Robert Rhodes James, wrote that “to him it was just a hat” ^[8]. Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a Conservative British politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Benito Mussolini created a fascist state through the use of propaganda, total control of the media and disassembly of the working democratic government. ... David Alexander Edward Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford, 10th Earl of Balcarres (1871-1940) was a British Conservative politician. ... Sir Robert Rhodes James (10 April 1933–1999) was a British historian and Conservative member of parliament. ...

The hat as a trademark

Even so, the image stuck. It became a "trademark" in the public mind and for cartoonists, assisting instant recognition. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, cartoons of Eden, such as those of Vicky (who two years later created the memorable image of Harold Macmillan as "Supermac") generally depicted him in the same hat for which he had become known twenty years earlier. In one such cartoon for the New Statesman, a behatted, but otherwise barely clothed Eden was shown in the biblical Garden of Eden being tempted with an apple by a young Frenchwoman, presumably Marianne, in the guise of Eve ^[9]. Combatants Israel Great Britain France Egypt Commanders Moshe Dayan Charles Keightley Pierre Barjot Gamal Abdel Nasser Strength 175,000 Israeli 45,000 British 34,000 French 300,000 Casualties 177 Israeli KIA 16 British KIA 91 British WIA 10 French KIA 33 French WIA 1,650 KIA 4,900 WIA... Victor Weisz A. Early Years // I. Born in Berlin, Germany in 1913. ... Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. ... The New Statesman is a left-of-centre political weekly published in London. ... The Fall of Man by Lucas Cranach, a 16th century German depiction of Eden The Garden of Eden (from Hebrew Gan Ēden, גַּן עֵדֶן) is described in the Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man - Adam - and woman - Eve - lived after they were created by God. ... Marianne busts with features of Brigitte Bardot - Catherine Deneuve - Mireille Mathieu Marianne, a national emblem of France, is a personification of Liberty and Reason. ... It has been suggested that Adam be merged into this article or section. ...

By contrast, journalist and social historian Anne de Courcy has written of Chamberlain that "he did not smoke a pipe, nor, like Anthony Eden did, always wear the same distinctive hat, though cartoonists made the most of his ever-present umbrella" ^[10]. In fact, as photographs from the late 1930s onwards show, Eden frequently wore no hat at all, a habit he shared with some other public men of his generation. In 1936 the poet John Betjeman managed to combine three aspects of modernity in just two lines when he observed of King Edward VIII (1894-1972), following the death of his father, George V (who, like Edward VII before him, had worn a Homburg for shooting ^[11]): Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906–19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Whos Who as a poet and hack. He was born to a middle-class family in Edwardian London. ... King Edward VIII King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, King of Ireland Emperor of India His Majesty King Edward VIII, (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David), later His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor (23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972) was the second British monarch of the... King George V King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Emperor of India His Majesty King George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert) (3 June 1865–20 January 1936) was the last British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, changing the name to the... Edward VII King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India His Majesty King Edward VII (Albert Edward) (9 November 1841–6 May 1910) was the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. ...

At the new suburb stretched beyond the runway

... a young man lands hatless from the air" ^[12].

The Anthony Eden in popular culture

In the 1960s, when hats for men were becoming unfashionable, former diplomat Geoffrey McDermott asked, "Who wears an Anthony Eden hat today? Only Mr Steptoe, Mr Enoch Powell and, rather curiously, [Russian leader] Mr Kosygin. And, of course, all those Carleton-Browne ^[13] characters at the F[oreign] O[ffice]" ^[14]. Steptoe and Son was a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherds Bush, London. ... The Right Honourable John Enoch Powell, MBE (June 16, 1912 – February 8, 1998) was a right-wing British politician and Conservative Party MP between 1950 and February 1974, and an Ulster Unionist MP between October 1974 and 1987. ... Aleksey Nikolayevich Kosygin (Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин) (1904 - December 18, 1980) was a politician and administrator in the Soviet Union. ...

Another well-known wearer of an “Anthony Eden” was Sergeant Arthur Wilson (played by John le Mesurier) in Dad's Army (1968-77), the BBC TV comedy series about the wartime Home Guard, which Eden established in 1940. In one episode, when Wilson was told by Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) (who, as manager of a bank, wore a bowler) that his hair was too long, Wilson replied that "Mrs Pike [his lover] says it makes me look like Eden". Sergeant (The Honourable) Arthur Wilson is a fictional Home Guard platoon sergeant and bank clerk portrayed by John Le Mesurier on the BBC television sitcom Dads Army. ... John Le Mesurier (Bedford, 5th April 1912 – 15th November, 1983), born John Charles Elton Le Mesurier De Somerys Halliley, was a British actor. ... Dads Army was a British sitcom about the Home Guard in the Second World War, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. ... The Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) or Home Guard, was instituted by the British government during World War II to defend the UK in the event of an invasion by Germany. ... Captain George Mainwaring (pronounced Mannering) is a fictional bank manager and Home Guard platoon commander portrayed by Arthur Lowe on the BBC television sitcom Dads Army, set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea during World War Two. ... Arthur Lowe (September 22, 1915—April 15, 1982) was a British actor. ...

"She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina", a 1969 song written by Ray Davies and recorded by The Kinks on the album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), contained the lines: HRH Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (née Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark), (13 December 1906 - 27 August 1968) was a member of the British Royal Family; the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V and Queen... Raymond Douglas Davies, CBE (born June 21, 1944 in Muswell Hill, London) is a British rock musician, best known as lead singer and main songwriter for The Kinks - one of the most influential British Invasion bands - which he led with his younger brother, Dave. ... The Kinks were a British rock group that rose to fame during the original British Invasion, and recorded and performed for over thirty years. ... Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) is a concept album by British rock band The Kinks, released in late 1969. ...

He's bought a hat like Anthony Eden's

Because it makes him feel like a Lord.

Notes