Pudding Hat

Pudding hat, 1775-1800. Museum no. B.81-1995 (click image for larger version)

Until the 1790s many children who were learning to walk wore protective hats known as 'puddings' or 'black puddings'. These protective hats were the equivalent of a crash helmet. They could be helpful for a child using a baby walker on wheels, who might skid along the floor and collide with furniture quite easily.

The hat consists of a sausage-shaped roll of glazed pink cotton with a padded white linen inner stiffened with wire and card, and a black Petersham ribbon tying string at each end. Four lightly padded triangular flaps of fabric, stiffened with card, are attached to the roll at regular intervals and partly cover the head. Two of these flaps fasten together with tying strings of broad black silk ribbon. The hat is worn by fastening the ribbons horizontally around the head and above the ears.

This pudding hat is fairly smart and has not been worn much, but the ones for everyday use were more often of dark fabric which would not show the dirt. There were also some very grand ones: in 1766 Lord Fitzmaurice, aged one and a half, wore a pudding hat which was made of the same fabric as his rose-coloured damask coat, and trimmed with black and white feathers.