The cap goes back to medieval Northern England, where a simple one-piece wool cap kept working people warm. Back then it was called a bonnet, but the shape we know today was already taking form.

In 1571 an English law ordered every man over six, except the nobility, to wear a wool cap on Sundays and holidays. It was meant to prop up the wool trade, with a fine for anyone who skipped it. The law faded, but the cap stayed.

Through the industrial years the cap became the everyday hat of labourers and farmers across Britain and Ireland. In a time when everyone wore a hat, yours told people exactly where you stood. The same cap could sit on a farmer at market or a landowner on a shoot.

By the 1890s the cap was worn by the real street gangs of Birmingham, whose world later inspired a well-known television drama. It was the same humble hat, now with an edge it never quite lost.

As families left for America the cap travelled with them, picking up new names along the way, from driving cap to newsboy. By the 1920s it was worn on both sides of the ocean, in fine tweed and plain cotton alike.

After quieter years the cap is back, worn now by every age and every kind of person, in wool, tweed, cotton, linen and leather. The story is still being written, one cap at a time.