shovel hat

English

Shovel hat as worn by some English clergy, particularly in the 19th century.

Etymology

From the shape. Apparently originally "fire shovel hat" or "fire-shovel-hat".

Noun

shovel hat (plural shovel hats)

1. A broad-brimmed hat, turned up at the sides and projecting in front like a shovel, formerly worn by some clergy in Britain, especially clergy of the Church of England.
   • 1816 The NEW EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE AND Theological Review

     SIR,
     There are some Clergymen in the establishment, who indulge themselves with an innocent kind of distinction, by the wearing of hats of a peculiar shape, with a rose ribbon, vulgarly called by others the fire shovel hats. It is generally confined to such Clergymen as have become chaplains to some Noblemen, or persons of rank and title. No man of respectability in the church assumes this shaped hat, if he has any sense of decorum and good manners. without the official title.
     But the case is very different with our Dissenting brethren; among them, the increase of these shaped hats, is truly alarming and disgusting. At one period, our ministers, were distinguished and held in contempt for their Puritanism and Methodism; but now they excite risibility, by the use of the "fire shovel hat". This is an offence, which must excite painful emotions in the heart of well educated and intelligent Dissenters, to have their respective pastors, aiming, not only at clerical distinction, but imposing upon the public as they walk through the streets, by the assumption of a badge of distinction, which is contrary to decency and good manners. As well might they place upon the breast, the star and garter, and the emblems of royal dignity, or wear lawn sleeves — or the black cassock or the sylvan cap, as to wear "the fire shovel hat".

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 8, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     And while the moralist, who is holding forth on the cover ( an accurate portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking.

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     Then came a picture of a cheerful and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very thin European, and the inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at Rosario".