Hats replaced bonnets as headgear for women around the 1890s and hat pins were needed to secure the hats firmly; they were essential for the larger hats worn around 1910-12.

The hat-pin industry expanded rapidly, producing pins of many materials, styles and qualities. Hat pins were necessary for everyday wear as well as for sports and motoring. Suffragettes used them as offensive weapons and were not allowed to wear them when they appeared in court. By-laws prohibited hat pins from being worn with protruding unprotected points and contemporary cartoons poked fun at their use.

This is the story of hat pins, how they were manufactured and used, and the designs that made them so popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.