Hat, bowler hat

Black felt bowler hat with black petersham ribbon and binding. The brown artificial leather sweat band is printed in gold 'Lincoln Bennett' and 'Swaine Adeney Brigg / 185, PICCADILLY, W.1.'. The crown lining of champagne coloured silk is printed with the logo of 'Lincoln Bennett & Co / Hatters / Piccadilly London / from / Swaine Adeney Brigg & Sons Ltd'.

In the 1950s and 1960s the then somewhat outdated bowler hat became, together with a rolled up umbrella, the sign of a City gent. However, this hat was not worn by someone who worked in the financial industry. It belonged to Hellmut [sic] Feisenberger, who was born in 1909 in Magdeburg, Germany. His father became judge at the Surpreme Court in Leipzig and Feisenberger followed in his footsteps by studying law in Berlin. He was still at university when the Nazis came to power in January 1933. As soon as he had finished his doctorate, Feisenberger escaped to London in June 1933. He became Junior partner in the booksellers Davis and Orioli and became a specialist in scientific literature. During the Second World War Feisenberger worked as cataloguer at Sotheby's, briefly set up on his own after the war, before becoming chief cataloguer at Dawsons, a bookseller on Pall Mall. He later returned to Sotheby's where he worked until his retirement in 1975. After his death in 1999, obituaries were published in the Times, the Daily Telegraph and The Independent.