A Memoir written for the Cassidy, Davis and Ford families to honour
a special lady who found love at the hat factory.
Winifred Ford nee Cassidy 12/10/1919-7/10/2018
To be “Madly in Love”… Love has the power to drive you crazy
and sweep you off your feet.
Anon
At just 13 years of age May Davis worked happily away at her
job at Courtaulds, a successful silk and rayon manufacturer in Bedworth in
Warwickshire. A year earlier due to increasing world demand for rayon their
second mill had commenced operations and after being extended and equipped it
was used for weaving viscose rayon into fabrics blouses, dresses etc.
In addition, Bedworth had become a centre for hat making
after the silk ribbon weaving industry was decimated in 1860s. May’s father,
Philip and her extended family either worked in the silk industry or as hat
makers. Messrs Wooten and Forge bought the new hat making
industry to Bedworth in 1887 and the population had jumped from 5000+ to 11,500
by 1921. Previously the hat industry and hat making were not even classed as
occupations for the purpose of taking the Census. A petition to the government
saw the trade of hat manufacture included in later census records. Philip Davis
was a hat body maker and the 1901 and the 1911 Census records that other Davis
relatives were hat plankers, hat hardeners or felt hat dyers.
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| James Edward Cassidy 1914 |
Seventy-seven miles away in Bury, Lancashire, an 18-year-old lad named
James
Edward Cassidy was working as a felt hat finisher for Messrs Spencer's Regent Hatworks
in Bury. Factories in Bury were also becoming significant hat manufacturers.
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| British Legion -Bury 1919 James is centre back |
After a stint in the 7th Lancashire Fusiliers where he was
wounded, hospitalised and returned to England, James returned to work at the
hat factory and married a local girl, Amelia Duckworth on 24th of April 1917 at
St Josephs Church Bury. James was a member of the British Legion branch in Bury
where he built his life with Amelia and their two little girls, Winifred and
Patricia. Tragically on 19 December 1924 Amelia died.
James's old friend Frank Nuttall also worked at Spencer's.
In 1924 Frank and his wife Nellie Chambers decided to head to Australia. Frank
was working at R.C. Henderson's Hat factory in Broadway, Sydney. R.C.
Henderson's Limited had started up in Sydney around 1907, expanding its market
to Queensland by 1917. Their hats were beautifully silk stitched and were both
machine and handmade with special attention to head measurement. Hats also had
silk headlining with the firm's name printed inside. The Queenslander
13/10/1917
The firm produced hats to suit every taste. The Henderson Hat was a new style
of hat, which was light with “simplicity of style and a good shape”. It was a
droop hat with “Baden Powell” crown in all the newest colourings. They made a
good range of straw hats as well.
At the age of 51 Phillip Davis with his wife Sarah Ann and children May, Ivy
and Jack also decided to travel to Australia in 1926. He began working at
Henderson’s and met up with Frank Nuttall who eventually became a foreman. When
May arrived in Sydney on the Otranto she would have been about 20 years old.
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| Davis Family from Bedworth L-R Sarah, Ivy, May, Eva's husband Jack, Jack and Eva |
And so it seems James' old friend from Bury, Frank Nuttall was instrumental in
introducing May Davis to his newly arrived friend. "If you want to get
ahead get a hat" is the old saying. If you want to find a girlfriend then
work in a Hat works. May and James were married only 6 months later on 30 June
1928. James had managed to “marry the boss’ daughter”. May’s father was a
foreman at the eastern suburbs site.
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| James and May's wedding |
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| More wedding shots.. everyone wears a Henderson hat |
James had left his two little daughters in the capable hands
of his sister-in-law Alice Tootill. Wouldn't they have been surprised when a year
or so later their Father sent for them to come to Australia and meet their new
mother who originally hailed from Warwickshire only 77 miles away.
In December 1928 Winifred Cassidy aged nine and Patricia aged six sailed on the SS
Orsova to Sydney to join their father and his new wife at 17 Annie St West
Ryde. Later it was renamed 17 Moss
Street West Ryde. James and May happily lived out their days together after
bringing up the two little girls and their four sons James, Terry, Michael and
Tony.
Wynne and Pat at the family home in West Ryde with James and May
There is a saying that some people are “mad as
hatters”. Mercury was used in the process of curing felt used in some hats. It
was impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the mercury fumes given off during
the hat making process. Hatters often suffered from mercury poisoning, which
caused neurological damage, confused speech and distorted vision. In February
1936 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Frank Nuttall was acting a little
mysteriously when he was seen to approach a cupboard daily, perform some
mysterious rite and emerge locking the door behind him. The cupboard exuded a
peculiar and unpleasant odour. No doubt James and Phillip would have speculated
with the other staff regarding Franks idiosyncratic behaviour, the contents of
the cupboard and the mysterious ritual.
No… Frank who was in charge of the finishing
department, was not mad – just supervising an experiment. All was revealed when
new machines were designed. Frank’s experiments resulted in perfecting a new
finish to the velour hat which rivalled the special Austrian velour. They would
have been bemused to find that Mr Nuttall had been on a fishing trip and the
contents of the cupboard were that of a drying and treated sharkskin! Nuttall
had developed a process “by which the rough surface of the shark skin tore into
the fur and brought out the very lifelike lustre which is so important to a
velour hat “
When the Autumn millinery collection was shown that year the
new velour allowed for greater diversity of style and trimming.
“High-turned brims and pointed domes
speak of China, and a contrast is the befeathered model that the Duke of
Wellington would scarcely have thought of wearing, but which, nevertheless, is
modelled on his own ceremonial head - gear. Sports hats are Tyrolean in shape,
but are not exaggerated. An interesting feature is the oblong crown, and in
some cases the triangular crown.
Feathers
and other trimmings follow the line of the hat. These are mostly restrained,
and frequently provide just an accent of colour. Berets and Beretta persist,
and ecclesiastic head-dresses are also represented. Other high-crowned models
are rather like inverted flower-pots, but so restrained is the line of these
has that they are smart rather than eccentric In appearance.” SMH 4/2/1956
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| James and May wearing the fashion of the day 1938 |
There is something about working in a Hat factory which
brings more love and romance into this story. James's daughter Winifred or
Wynne as she is affectionately known joined him at Henderson's when she left
school.
Wynne was a milliner and hat trimmer, a job she was proud of and which would
use her creative and sewing skills. As Australia entered the war the girls in
the factory began making hats for the Defence Force. You can just imagine the
girls chatting all those handsome soldiers they had seen out and about as they
worked away at their machines. Theirs would've been a very important wartime
job ensuring the supply of the ever-increasing numbers of Australian soldier
slouch hats needed for the boys in uniform.
It was the custom in some hat works that the hat trimmers wrote little notes
for the soldier who would receive a hat that they had finished. These would
have been little notes of best wishes and encouragement for the young men who
were taking off to foreign parts or northern Australia to defend our country
against the enemy. A visiting journalist
asked Wynne if the milliners at Henderson’s were in the habit of writing notes
to the soldiers. She quickly wrote a little note and impulsively slipped it in
the band of the hat she was working on and continued with her quota.
One young 25 year old soldier was posted in Darwin. During a
bombing raid, he lost his slouch hat. Wynne in fact, made his replacement hat.
He received a replacement hat with the note attached from young Wynne who was
aged around 23 at the time. One little message and then cupid did his magic.
Joseph Hudson Ford and Wynne Cassidy began corresponding. Through the bond of
that message in the hatband they somehow met. While they were courting Joe left
the Army in Darwin and joined the RAAF to serve in New Guinea. Whilst home on
leave they married on 10th of June 1944 at St Michael’s Church at Meadowbank.
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| Wynne and Joe's wedding with Pat as bridesmaaid , James and little brother Michael (r) |
They made their home in Eastwood where they brought up their
three children Mary, Chris and Stephen. Joe was totally devoted to Wynne from
the day they were married until he died aged 90. Wynne continued to love hats
and would continue to trim clothes for herself, her 3 children, 6 grandchildren
and 11 great grandchildren.
So what became of Henderson’s? Mr RC
Henderson, the founder, died and the company converted to a public company in
1950 to pay his death duties. By that time hats were losing popularity. Profits
were up and down and despite some improving demand in 1952 the company was put
in receivership in December 1954. Some time after that the factory closed down.
James, having put his age down by 10 years, went to work for Hoovers at
Meadowbank where he happily worked as a Nightwatchman and cleaner. He finished
each shift with a beer at West Ryde Hotel. Frank Nuttall finished his career
managing Battersby Hats in Remuera NZ living there with his wife Nellie until
their deaths.
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| Click on the photo to enlarge the Hnenderson's Hats signage on the Sydney city building near Central Station |
The Henderson’s sign is still painted
on the side wall and can be seen from Central Railway Station. The building was
taken over by Police headquarters and Henderson’s was immortalised because the
police affectionately called their new home “The Hat Factory”.
Rumours abound of the mercury seeping
out of the floors of the old building…. Has it affected us? There is a touch of idiosyncrasy or madness
in all of the Cassidy and Davis descendants. As Auntie Pat used to say. “All
are mad except me and thee.” The rest of the saying goes … “and I even have my
doubts about thee.”
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Some of the clan at the wedding of yours truely in 1977
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