This fascinating object appears to be a simple wooden hat made from the hump of a box tree. The hump has been chiselled and hollowed out to form a helmet-shaped piece of headwear. Thought to date from around 1840, it was owned for many years by Dame Mary Gilmore, who gave it to the Royal Australian Historical Society. The Powerhouse Museum acquired it in 1981 when it was transferred from the Society's collection.
A celebrated public figure, Dame Mary Gilmore (1865-1962) was an outstanding Australian writer and activist. She campaigned for social and economic reforms such as votes for women, relief for the poor and justice for Aborigines. When she gave the hat to the Royal Australian Historical Society in 1943 she penned a note which told the story of its origin. The text of the note is as follows:
"A Ticket-of-Leave "hat" over a hundred years old.
A ticket-of-leave man, not being able to afford a hat, cut one from a box tree, using a 'hump' for the purpose. After cutting the hump from the tree, he first charred and then chiselled out the inside (the marks still show), till he had a helmet-shaped shell over half an inch thick all over. He trimmed the edges, allowing a long piece for the back of his neck. When first made it weighed pounds, but his neck muscles accommodated themselves to carrying it. In 1872 I saw the place where he lived, if not the man himself. He wore the helmet till he died. He told my father that he was so accustomed to the weight and thickness that he could not wear anything else. (He bought a hat once and caught cold in it). The edges were broken off before the relic was given to me." (Dame Mary Gilmore)
This note indicates that Gilmore's father told her that the hat belonged to a 'ticket-of-leave man'. In the penal settlement of New South Wales transported convicts who had served a certain amount of their sentence and displayed good behaviour could become eligible for a ticket-of-leave, which enabled them to work on their own account and, with certain restrictions, to live as they pleased. A ticket-of-leave man remained classed as a convict and was not legally free until his term expired. He did not enjoy full civil rights in relation to acquiring property and recovering debts, making it hard for a ticket-of-leave man to accumulate wealth. This could explain why the hat's owner had to make-do with this clumsy piece of headwear.
It is tempting to take Gilmore's detailed account of the hat's origins at face value. However the anecdote told by her father when she was a child could be unreliable. Stories transmitted orally and written down 100 years later cannot always be accepted uncritically and may present a romanticised view of the past.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography points out that Gilmore's published prose reminiscences are not always reliable: "These anecdotal accounts which present 'Australia as she was when she was most Australian' are lively and attractive examples of her skill as a prose writer and, although unreliable and romanticised, have become invaluable sources of the legend of the pioneer days."
In her handwritten text Gilmore mentions that in 1872 (when she would have been aged 6 or 7) she saw the place where the ticket-of-leave man lived, but admits that she did not meet the man himself. This date provides few clues to help tie the hat to a particular place. This is because in the early 1870s Gilmore's family moved around south-western New South Wales, although it is known that at the age of 7 she attended school at Brucedale near Wagga Wagga.
If the Gilmore story is true, this hat can illustrate aspects of convict deprivation, colonial craft and the ingenious use of improvised materials by pioneers.
It has been pointed out, however, that when turned upside down, the hat resembles the type of water container fashioned by Aborigines from humps in knotty trees. The Australian Museum holds similar examples of such vessels. These artifacts and the Gilmore story leave us with many unanswered questions. Was this object really used as a hat? Did the ticket-of-leave man acquire and adapt an Aboriginal artefact? Did he learn an Aboriginal technique for fashioning water containers?
Peter Cox
Curator, 2000
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