Lock & Co Hatters

Lock & Co. Hatters traces its origin to 1676, when Robert Davis opened a hat shop that would become, by most accounts, the oldest continuously operating shop in London and the oldest hatter in the world. James Lock, apprenticed to Davis's son Charles in 1747, married into the family and inherited the business on Charles's death in 1759; his descendants have owned and run it ever since. The firm moved to its present address, 6 St James's Street, in 1765, a Grade II*-listed building it still occupies. Its best-known invention dates to 1849, when Edward Coke, nephew of the Earl of Leicester, asked Lock's for sturdier headgear for his gamekeepers; hat-makers Thomas and William Bowler supplied a hardened, low-crowned design that Coke reportedly stamped on twice before paying twelve shillings — the origin of the bowler hat. Admiral Nelson wore a Lock bicorne into the Battle of Trafalgar, and the client list over three centuries has included Beau Brummell, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill (a devotee of its Homburg), and Charlie Chaplin. The shop currently holds a royal warrant as Hatter to King Charles III, continuing a tradition of royal patronage that included Prince Philip. It is reckoned the world's 34th-oldest family-owned business still in operation.