Episode 141: Mocked in London Part 1: Umbrellas

Host: Hazel Baker

Hazel is an active Londoner, a keen theatre-goer and qualified  CIGA London tour guide.

She has won awards for tour guiding and is proud to be involved with some great organisations. She is a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors and am an honorary member of The Leaders Council.

Channel 5’s Walking Wartime Britain(Episode 3) and Yesterday Channel’s The Architecture the Railways Built (Series 3, Episode 7). Het Rampjaar 1672, Afl. 2: Vijand Engeland and Arte.fr Invitation au Voyage, À Chelsea, une femme qui trompe énormément.

 

Transcript:

Podcast Episode 141: Mocked in London – Part 1: The Umbrella

London is a city defined by its traditions, and just as much by its rule-breakers. Picture this: a man steps out into a drizzling Georgian afternoon, unfurls a strange contraption over his head, and instantly becomes the laughing stock of every street urchin, cabbie, and newspaper cartoonist in the capital. His crime? Using an umbrella.

Welcome to the London History Podcast, the show where we dive into the curious, delightful and sometimes ridiculous moments when Londoners, simply by being first, became targets for mockery, outrage, and even street-side assaults. And most marvellously of all, how these moments shaped the entire city’s future.

I’m your host, and today we’re embarking on a journey through London’s most extraordinary episodes of resistance, ridicule, and eventual acceptance. From Georgian gentlemen to Victorian ladies, from medieval shoe enthusiasts to Edwardian cyclists—every generation has had its pioneers, and every pioneer has faced their mockers. Let’s embark on part 1 of Mocked in London!

Today, we’ll unearth stories of umbrella-toting pioneers being pelted in the streets, women arrested for wearing trousers, and gentlemen lambasted in prints for their outrageously tall wigs. Fashion, technology, transport, and even vision aids—if it was new, someone in London thought it was scandalous.

But here’s the thing that makes these stories so compelling: they’re not just about fashion faux pas or technological hiccups. They’re about power, identity, and social control. Every time a Londoner picked up an umbrella, donned a pair of spectacles, or mounted a bicycle, they weren’t just making a practical choice—they were challenging the established order.

So, why does London resist what it eventually embraces? How do mocked moments become milestones? And, in all seriousness, what can we learn from the great moral panics over hats, trains, or even eyeglasses? Stay with me as we unpack the city’s most extraordinary tales of mockery, resistance, and—ultimately—transformation.

Because if there’s one thing London’s history teaches us, it’s that today’s scandal is tomorrow’s standard, and yesterday’s heretic often becomes tomorrow’s hero.

Chapter 1: The Ancient Origins – From Sacred Shade to Practical Protection

Before we dive into London’s umbrella wars, we need to understand where this peculiar contraption came from. The umbrella’s story begins not in London’s rainy streets, but in the blazing sun of ancient civilizations over four thousand years ago.

In ancient Egypt, umbrellas—or more accurately, parasols—were symbols of divine power. Made from palm leaves, papyrus, and even peacock feathers, they were held over pharaohs and nobility to provide sacred shade. These weren’t mere accessories—they were symbols of authority so powerful that servants were employed specifically to carry them. The very shadow cast by a parasol indicated the presence of someone blessed by the gods.

Meanwhile, in ancient China, something rather remarkable was happening. The Chinese weren’t content with simple sun protection; they developed the world’s first waterproof umbrellas by coating paper with wax and lacquer. Even more ingeniously, they created the first collapsible umbrella design during the Han Dynasty, a technological innovation that wouldn’t reach Europe for over a thousand years.

The Royal Introduction to England

Now, fast-forward to 1774, and we find Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, receiving what newspapers called “a very curious umbrella made in Italy” from her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cumberland. This wasn’t just any umbrella—it was a luxurious Italian creation, probably made from silk, with whalebone ribs and ornate decoration. These Italian umbrellas were massive affairs, often requiring an attendant to carry them, and could weigh several pounds.

This royal endorsement was crucial, because umbrellas in 18th-century England were still seen as foreign, feminine, and frankly rather suspicious. The very word “umbrella” comes from the Latin “umbra,” meaning shade or shadow; a reminder of its origins as sun protection rather than rain defence.

Jonas Hanway’s Revolutionary Stand

Let’s start with the umbrella—now as much a London icon as red buses and black cabs. Walk down any London street on a rainy day and you’ll see hundreds of them, as natural as breathing. But for most of the eighteenth century, Londoners faced the rain with bravado and a good soaking. Gentlemen wore broad-brimmed hats, ladies huddled under porticos, and everyone simply accepted that getting drenched was part of city life.

To step out from a coffee house carrying an umbrella wasn’t just unusual, it was an act of social rebellion.

Enter Jonas Hanway, a well-to-do philanthropist with a practical mind and, as it turned out, extraordinary courage. Around 1750, Hanway began doing something no respectable English gentleman had ever done; he carried an umbrella. Not a parasol, mind you, which ladies might use against the sun, but a proper rain umbrella, held over his head as he walked London’s streets.

You’d think he was simply being practical, but Hanway’s umbrella was greeted with jeers and even violence. Children threw mud and stones at him. Sedan chair carriers, those burly men who made their living transporting the wealthy through London’s streets, saw his umbrella as a direct threat to their livelihood—after all, who needs to hire a covered chair if you can stay dry with your own portable roof?

But it was the hackney cab drivers who posed the real danger. These men depended on rainy days for their best business. When it poured, fares doubled, tripled even. A man with an umbrella was a walking threat to their income, and they responded accordingly. Contemporary accounts tell us they pelted Hanway with rubbish and even aimed their horses directly at him, trying to knock his revolutionary contraption from his hands.

The capital’s wits declared him “effeminate” and “French”—two of the worst insults you could hurl at an Englishman in the 1750s. The umbrella, you see, was associated with women and foreigners. In France and Italy, umbrellas had been common for decades. But in England? Real men got wet and liked it.

James Gillray, the great caricaturist, made a fortune drawing prints that mocked umbrella users. His satirical images showed effeminate men cowering under their “French contraptions” whilst proper Englishmen strode manfully through the rain. The prints sold like hotcakes in shop windows from Fleet Street to Piccadilly.

But here’s where Hanway’s story becomes fascinating. This man, who could have simply given up and got wet like everyone else, persisted. Day after day, year after year, he carried his umbrella through London’s streets. And slowly, imperceptibly, attitudes began to shift.

First, other philanthropists and reformers began following his example; men whose social standing was secure enough to weather the ridicule. Then merchants, who saw the practical advantages of staying dry whilst conducting business. Gradually, umbrellas appeared in gentlemen’s shops, no longer as exotic imports but as practical accessories.

The Satirical Legacy and Cultural Impact

Throughout all of this practical adoption, London’s satirists never quite stopped poking fun at umbrella culture. James Gillray and George Cruikshank continued producing prints showing umbrellas crowding London’s parks and streets. In one famous Gillray print called “Taking the Air” from 1782, umbrellas are depicted “as thick as flies”—an image both ridiculous and somehow prophetic.

But here’s the fascinating thing about all that mockery; it actually drove umbrella sales. Print-sellers along Fleet Street discovered that the more they ridiculed umbrellas in their shop windows, the more people became curious about these peculiar contraptions. Satirical prints became, in effect, the Georgian equivalent of advertising.

The Steel Revolution That Changed Everything

By the 1780s, the umbrella had become unremarkable. But the real revolution was still to come. In 1847, Samuel Fox—a wire drawer from Stocksbridge near Sheffield—invented the steel-ribbed umbrella. This was absolutely revolutionary. Until then, umbrellas had been made with whalebone, making them heavy, expensive, and prone to breaking.

Fox’s steel ribs transformed umbrellas from luxury items into practical accessories that ordinary Londoners could afford. The steel ribs were lighter, stronger, and could be mass-produced. By the 1890s, steel-ribbed umbrellas were selling for about fourteen pounds each, roughly seventy pounds in today’s money, making them accessible to the growing middle class.

The Great London Umbrella Industry Boom

This technological revolution sparked an entire London industry. In 1805, the Ince family began making umbrellas in Spitalfields, becoming the oldest established umbrella manufacturers in the country. By 1824, you could find William Ince crafting umbrellas on Whites Row, and remarkably, six generations later, the family was still making umbrellas in the East End.

But it was James Smith who truly capitalised on London’s umbrella boom. In 1830, he founded his workshop just off Regent Street. What started as a small operation became legendary; James Smith & Sons is still trading today from New Oxford Street, billing itself as “the oldest umbrella shop in London”.

The umbrella business was so lucrative that by 1857, companies like Ince & Sons occupied multiple buildings; one in Brushfield Street and another on Bishopsgate. During the height of the Victorian era, they were producing umbrellas not just for London’s streets, but for export to India, Burma, and across the British Empire.

The Duke of Wellington’s Military Contradiction

Now, as London embraced umbrellas, the military establishment remained stubbornly resistant. The Duke of Wellington—that’s Arthur Wellesley, hero of Waterloo and noted hater of anything he deemed unmanly—had some very specific opinions about umbrellas.

Wellington famously forbade his officers and common soldiers alike from carrying umbrellas whilst on campaign or in battle. To the Iron Duke, such behaviour was utterly unbecoming of a British fighting man. Umbrellas were still considered effeminate, foreign, and frankly, a sign of weakness.

During the Peninsular War, the Duke of Wellington made it clear that umbrellas had no place on the battlefield. On December 10, 1813, he spotted a group of Grenadier Guards seeking shelter from the rain under their umbrellas and promptly sent a stern message: “Lord Wellington does not approve of the use of umbrellas during the enemy’s firing, and will not allow the gentlemen’s sons to make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of the army.” Later, he reproved their commander with equal firmness: “The Guards may carry umbrellas when in uniform at St. James’s if they please, but on the field it is not only ridiculous but unmilitary.”

Wellington’s stance reflected the military ethos of the time—; practicality was often overshadowed by notions of discipline and decorum. While he himself owned an umbrella (reportedly with a concealed swordstick), he forbade its use in combat, reserving it for civilian dress and the polished streets of London, not the mud-soaked battlefields of Europe.

 

So there you have it umbrellas remained strictly off limits on the battlefield. But on London’s fashionable streets? They’d ironically become a mark of status and respectability. Classic British class distinction, really—what’s scandalous for a soldier is perfectly acceptable for a gentleman taking his morning constitutional through Mayfair.

Baron de Berenger’s Martial Arts Revolution

Now, here’s where our umbrella story takes a truly extraordinary turn. Enter Baron Charles Random de Berenger—and yes, that really was his name—a colourful character who in 1835 published a remarkable book called “Helps and Hints How to Protect Life and Property”.

De Berenger wasn’t just any old self-defence instructor. This was a man with a decidedly chequered past. Born Charles Random—he’d adopted the “de Berenger” title after marrying a German baroness—he’d served time in debtor’s prison and been involved in one of the most audacious stock frauds in London history. In 1814, he’d helped spread false news that Napoleon had been killed, causing government stock prices to soar before the conspirators cashed in their profits. Rather embarrassingly, he spent a year in prison for that particular escapade.

But by the 1830s, the Baron had reinvented himself as London’s premier instructor in what he called “Defensive Gymnastics.” And central to his teachings was the humble umbrella.

De Berenger established what he grandly called “The Stadium” or “British National Arena” at Chelsea—think of it as a sort of Georgian fitness club meets martial arts academy. Here, gentlemen could learn not just rifle and pistol shooting, but practical self-defence using everyday objects. And the umbrella, according to the Baron, was absolutely perfect for this purpose.

In his book, de Berenger outlined several ingenious methods for using an umbrella in defence against highwaymen and street ruffians. His techniques ranged from the practical—using the umbrella’s point as a thrusting weapon, or its handle as a club—to the absolutely extraordinary. The Baron actually suggested that a gentleman could shoot straight through his own umbrella with a concealed flintlock pistol, using the fabric as camouflage for his weapon.

The Victorian Technological Leap

The Victorian era brought the most significant technological advances in umbrella design since the Chinese invented the collapsible frame. The introduction of the sewing machine in the 1880s revolutionised umbrella manufacturing, though high-end producers like Brigg recognised that hand-sewn covers remained superior.

During this period, umbrellas became incredibly elaborate. Victorian designs featured silk canopies, intricate patterns, and handles carved from exotic woods. Ladies’ parasols became fashion statements—some were so ornate they served more as social accessories than practical weather protection.

The Sangster brothers, William and John, developed the famous “Sylphide Parasol” which became absolutely essential for fashionable ladies. According to contemporary accounts, they sold over sixty thousand of these lightweight, graceful parasols, which “may now be seen in all the most fashionable drives and promenades in and about London”. Not to be outdone, they also patented the “Alpaca Umbrella,” selling over seventy thousand of these practical rain-protection devices.

The Collapsible Revolution

The next great innovation wouldn’t arrive until much later. In 1885, American inventor John Van Wormer patented the first design for a collapsible umbrella, though it wasn’t commercially successful. It took until 1928 for Hans Haupt to perfect the pocket umbrella—the telescopic design we’re familiar with today—receiving his patent in 1929.

This German innovation transformed umbrella culture completely. Suddenly, Londoners could carry lightweight, compact umbrellas in briefcases and handbags. No longer did you need to predict the weather when leaving home—you could carry protection just in case.

article written by a European traveller about life in England. It is a fascinating piece, because it tells us less about England itself, and more about how England was perceived by outsiders.

There’s a rather amusing article in Bell’s New Weekly Messenger, one of the many “Sunday papers” that flourished in the 1830s, designed to be bought cheaply and read aloud in households, coffee-houses, and taverns. This satirical article was from February 1832 and states that due to England’s rainy climate, the umbrella was, and still is, indispensable. Yet according to this writer, umbrellas were constantly stolen in London. So much so, in fact, that one newspaper ran a satirical story about a Society for the Encouragement of Virtue. They were looking for the most honourable action they could reward. The decision of whom to be the winner was very difficult. It almost went to a man who had done something as unusual as paying his tailor’s bills on time for several years, but was instead awarded went to a man who twice returned umbrellas left at his house! “the first fell into mute wonder that so much virtue was still found.”

It doesn’t seem to be that the ownership of umbrellas changed in the 1840s either. An article in The Odd Fellow, publication associated with the Odd Fellows Society begins with a bold claim. Umbrellas, it says, are not really property at all. They belong to nobody – or perhaps to everybody. He describes them as a kind of “floating capital,” constantly on the move, slipping from one person’s hand to another’s, and always becoming more battered and worthless along the way. In short, nobody ever truly owns an umbrella.

The author imagines the hopelessness of buying one new. Yes, there are umbrella shops in every town, but what sort of naïve person actually purchases one? Doing so is compared to buying “two acres of the wind.” Even if you engrave your name upon it, the umbrella will soon desert you. After a few weeks of faithful service, it elopes with someone else – borrowed by a friend in a rain shower, promised to be returned, but inevitably gone forever.

And this, says the writer, is how the circulation begins. You lend an umbrella, you lose it, and in desperation you borrow one yourself – thereby robbing someone else. Umbrellas pass through endless hands, always exchanged upwards. For, as the article wryly notes, nobody ever mistakes a worse umbrella for their own. By the time an umbrella has been swapped a few times, a smart, twenty-five-shilling model has declined into a bedraggled rag with a brass ring, worth only threepence. It is a slow but certain decline from gold to brass.

What makes this comic essay so delightful is the way it personifies the umbrella. It is described as a faithless partner – loved, cherished, then suddenly gone, and perhaps rediscovered years later in a sorry state, bearing the scars of countless other owners. To recognise an old umbrella in its final days is, the writer says, “a true agony of agonies.”

At the close, the author divides mankind into two classes: those who actually buy umbrellas, and those who simply acquire them by chance. Buyers are portrayed as martyrs, suffering for the good of society at large. Without them, no one would ever have umbrellas to “mistake” in the first place. The piece even proposes a special monument for these public benefactors: a mausoleum topped with an umbrella, so posterity might remember their sacrifice.

Now, of course, it is all written with tongue firmly in cheek. But there is a deeper truth in the satire. Umbrellas, in Victorian London as today, were a nuisance;  lost in taverns, exchanged in theatres, borrowed and forgotten in boarding houses. And behind the comedy lies an observation about property and morality. Some things, like umbrellas, almost seem to resist ownership.

 

London’s Umbrella Chaos and Street Economy

Picture this scene: a sudden London downpour strikes just as hundreds of well-dressed patrons emerge from Covent Garden or Drury Lane in the 1840s. Suddenly, the pavements become a battlefield of competing umbrellas—”one violent gust,” as that Times letter put it, “and fifty brollies bob and weave, poking hats, teeth, and topcoats indiscriminately.”

Street vendors, being the enterprising sorts they were, swiftly capitalised on this chaos. They began selling compact, folding “pocket” umbrellas, which promptly caused fresh complaints in Parliament about “the dangers to public safety from swift-pointed iron frames in the hands of the unwary”.

Meanwhile, those enterprising Savoyard boys were creating an entire umbrella-based economy. These lads stationed themselves at every major street corner, church entrance, and coffee house, ready to lend umbrellas to anyone caught out in the rain. For just tuppence, they’d follow you for a mile, holding the umbrella over your head—a sort of Georgian-era personal umbrella service.

The Birth of Umbrella Rental Services

This entrepreneurial spirit led to proper umbrella rental businesses. In the early 1900s, the District Messenger Company offered Londoners the chance to rent an umbrella for sixpence a day. According to newspaper reports, “the public failed to take any interest in the scheme, and it had a very short life.” However, the idea persisted. In 1935, Orpington station offered umbrella rental services, and remarkably, in 2024, a company called Rentbrella brought the concept back to modern London.

Members of Parliament and barristers would routinely hire umbrellas to dash between buildings. The theft of borrowed umbrellas became such a problem that London’s police reports began listing umbrella theft as a distinct category of crime.

We now strive to live a greener life, moving away from the need of buying a replacement when something has broken. But in 1908 you could go and take your old and broken umbrella to Sid Nunn at 144 High Street Woolwich where he would recover a gentleman’s umbrella from 2/- Sid also made walking sticks made to order, ferrules ((metal tips for walking sticks) ) and bands (metal rings which are attached to the shaft of the stick, usually near the handle, for decorative and functional purposes). If Woolwich was a little too South East, then perhaps you could go to Atkinson & Son 79, St. Andrew’s, Uxbridge to get your umbrella ‘recovered’. Any why not treat yourself to a walking stick whilst there, they have a large variety; “English and Foreign”

 

One thing was clear when I was searching newspaper articles about umbrellas, and that was their increase in popularity. In the years 1800 – 1849 there were 33,371 articles and adverts mentioning umbrellas but in the years 1850 – 1899 there were 270,098!

The World Wars and Umbrella Innovation

Picture the Western Front during the First World War: rain lashing down, trenches ankle-deep in mud, and young men huddling for shelter. As strange as it sounds, one unlikely tool found its way from the London streets to the battlefields—an umbrella. But not just any umbrella. These were military umbrellas, made by one of London’s oldest and most storied producers: James Ince & Sons, Umbrella Makers of Spitalfields. 

 

Established in 1805, Ince & Sons had already spent more than a century refining their craft amidst Spitalfields’ bustling workshops. But wartime called for a new kind of ingenuity.

So why a military umbrella? In the trenches, the elements were relentless. Rain was as much an enemy as the opposing army: it turned defensive lines into muddy quagmires and left men constantly wet and cold. While the British Army higher-ups initially dismissed umbrellas as “not for war,” the endless downpours proved otherwise. Practical solutions mattered more than appearances, and Ince & Sons provided umbrellas robust enough to endure the grime and winds of trench life.

After World War I, something interesting happened to umbrella culture. The walking stick’s popularity declined, likely due to the rise of motoring and its association with mobility aids for war veterans. Fortunately for umbrella manufacturers, this decline coincided with the umbrella’s ascent as the essential gentleman’s accessory. By the 1930s, a professional man without a furled umbrella was unthinkable in London. I always think of the 1960s British romantic comedy film The Grass is Greener starring Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons where Deborah Kerr’s character is trying to explain away the over reliance of the English of umbrellas to a rather hunky and oily millionaire played by Robert Mitchum (a personal favourite).

The Modern London Umbrella Legacy

By the late Victorian period, something rather telling was happening. The London Underground and the city’s Lost Property Office had become repositories for thousands upon thousands of forgotten umbrellas each year. In 1902, just one year after the Central line opened, 560 umbrellas were left on trains and in stations, most remaining unclaimed.

The phrase “left like an umbrella in a cab” entered London vernacular as shorthand for things quickly lost and forgotten in the bustle of city life. Even today, Transport for London’s Lost Property Office deals with an absolutely staggering number of abandoned umbrellas; a tradition stretching back over 150 years.

The Complete Journey: From Mockery to Mastery

So what began with ancient Egyptian pharaohs under palm leaf parasols evolved through Chinese waterproof innovations, Italian craftsmanship, Jonas Hanway’s lonely courage, Samuel Fox’s steel revolution, Baron de Berenger’s martial arts classes, Wellington’s contradictory military policies, Victorian technological advances, street boys’ entrepreneurial schemes, parliamentary complaints about umbrella violence, wartime adaptations, and eventually an entire London industry built around keeping dry.

The umbrella’s journey from foreign folly to English essential tells us something profound about how London changes. Innovation doesn’t arrive through royal decree or government policy—it arrives through ancient wisdom, technological innovation, individual courage, entrepreneurial spirit, and the peculiar British ability to first mock something mercilessly, then embrace it completely.

And perhaps most tellingly of all, whilst the Duke of Wellington banned umbrellas from his battlefields, London’s streets had become their own kind of battlefield; one where staying dry was the ultimate victory.

It’s simple: in London, if an idea is mocked, ridiculed, and actively prevented—that’s a sign it will become utterly indispensable within fifty years. The umbrella’s long soggy march from ridicule to respectability mirrors every British innovation… first sneered at, then hailed as tradition.

So next time you’re caught in a drenching London downpour with brolly in hand, just remember; you’re participating in four millennia of comic genius, technological innovation, and cultural stubbornness. And, if tradition holds, half of London will want to borrow your umbrella and never give it back!

That’s for this episode. I am Hazel Baker from londonguidedwalks.co.uk – I hope you enjoyed part 1 of Mocked in London. Until next time!