HASTINGS 



Hastings, WARREN (1732-1818). 

 British statesman. Born at 

 Churchill. Oxfordshire, Dec. 6, 

 1732, he was 

 the son of Pen- 

 niston Hast- 

 ings, the rector 



* of the parish. 



His mother 

 died a few 

 days after his 

 birth, his 

 father went 

 abroad, and 

 the child was 

 looked after 



After T. Kettle by Ms gran( J. 



father, another Penniston Hastings. 

 He was educated at Churchill, at 

 a school at Newington Butts, and 

 finally at Westminster, where he 

 was a king's scholar. In 1750 he 

 became a writer in the service of 

 the E. India Co. 



In 1756 Hastings joined the 

 force that under Clive recovered 

 Calcutta from Suraj-ad-Dowlah. 

 He served Clive well in some diplo- 

 matic work, and after Plassey was 

 made president at Murshidabad, 

 where he worked in close harmony 

 with his chief, and did good service 

 to the E. India Company. In 1761 

 he became a member of the council 

 of Bengal, and returning to Cal- 

 cutta, he passed three years mainly 

 in disputes with his colleagues. 

 He resigned in 1764. 



After four years in England, 

 Hastings returned to India in 1768, 

 as second member of the council of 

 Madras, remaining there until 

 transferred to a like position in 

 Bengal. In 1772 he became presi- 

 dent of the council of Bengal, and 

 in 1773 he was named governor- 

 general of India under Lord North's 

 regulating Act. The government 

 was controlled by a council of five, 

 and three of these members, led 

 by Sir Philip Francis, habitually 

 thwarted the governor - general. 

 Despite this antagonism, Hastings 

 reorganized the administration of 

 Bengal, laying the foundations of the 

 Indian civil service. The blunders of 

 the British authorities in Bombay 

 and Madras forced him into wars 

 with the Mahratta powers, and 

 with Haidar Ali ; the boldness with 

 which he faced these emergencies 

 saved the British power in India 

 from destruction. After the de- 

 parture of Francis, the council 

 acted somewhat more harmoni- 

 ously, and Hastings had a less 

 difficult time in the years that pre- 

 ceded his recall in 1785. 



In the straits to which he was 

 reduced, by want of funds and lack 

 of effective support from the Com- 

 pany, Hastings adopted methods 

 which would have been a matter of 

 course for Orientals, but which 



Europeans cannot employ without 

 risk of censure. Public opinion in 

 England was stirred against him 

 by his chief enemy, Francis, whom 

 he had wounded in a duel in Aug., 

 1780. Soon after his return he was 

 impeached. The trial, which began 

 in 1788, aroused tremendous in- 

 terest. It lasted over seven years, 

 the chief charge against Hastings 

 being that he had hired out British 

 troops to exterminate the Rohillas, 

 had robbed the begums of Oudh, 

 and was responsible for the judicial 

 murder of Nuncomar. The House 

 of Lords unanimously acquitted 

 him on every charge, and the ver- 

 dict of successive governors-general 

 was emphatically in his favour. 

 He was ruined financially by the 

 trial, but the Company made tardy 

 reparation by conferring a pension 

 on him, and before his death the 

 House of Commons acknowledged 

 formally his distinguished services 



to Britain. He died at Daylesford. 

 Aug. 22, 1818, and was buried in 

 the church there. See India, 



Bibliography. The Story of Nun 

 comar and the Impeachment of Sir 

 E. Impey, Sir J. F. Stephen, 1885 ; 

 Warren Hastings, L. J. Trotter, 

 1890 ; The Administration of War- 

 ren Hastings, Sir G. W. Forrest, 



1892 ; The Rise of the British Do- 

 minion in India, Sir A. C. Lyall, 



1893 : Warren Hastings, Sir A. C. 

 Lyall, 1899 : and JMacaulay's Essay. 



Hastings Beds. Series of sand- 

 stones sands, clays, and layers of 

 limestone, forming the lower part 

 of the Wealden series in Kent, 

 Surrey, and Sussex. Their greatest 

 thickness is 1,000 ft., and they con- 

 tain fossil remains. 



Haswell. Parish and village of 

 Durham, England. It is 9 m. S. of 

 Sunderland on the N.E. ' Rly. 

 Coal-mining is the chief industry 

 Pop. 5,860 



HAT AND HAT-MAKING 



M. E. Brooke, Writer on Fashion 



There are supplementary articles, on the various special forms of 



hat, e.g. Panama, Sombrero. See the articles on other items of 



dress ; also Cap and Costume, with their colour plates 



A hat is a covering for the head, 

 distinguished from the cap by 

 having a brim. This distinction, 

 however, grew up but slowly, and 

 in early times there were few varia- 

 tions of head-dress, the first being 

 undoubtedly the skin of some 

 animal worn round the head for 

 protective purposes. 



The modern hat has been traced 

 to the Greeks, who wore the 

 petasos, a low-crowned, wide 

 brimmed felt one, tied under the 

 chin or in other ways. A few 

 Romans wore something of this 

 kind, and also the causia, of Mace- 

 donian origin, a hat of felt with 

 high crown and broad brim. The 

 pileus was a close-fitting cap. 

 Felt hats of somewhat similar 

 shape were worn by the rich in 

 England in the 12th century. 



In the 14th century, men in 

 England wore tall felt hats with 

 coloured upturned brims. The 

 1 5th century saw somewhat similar 

 hats, and then came the flat hat, 

 usually of velvet, popular in Tudor 

 times. The best known example of 

 this is to be seen in Holbein's por- 

 trait of Henry VIII. The pot hat, 

 trimmed with a plume in front, 

 appeared in the reign of Elizabeth. 

 Later came the high -crowned, 

 broad-brimmed Puritan hat, intro- 

 duced early in the 17th century ; 

 and in the time of Charles II 

 a big, low-crowned hat with a pro- 

 fusion of feathers was the hat worn 

 by the typical cavalier. 



The next important innovation 

 was the three-cornered or cocked 



hat, which lasted until the French 

 Revolution. Then, about 1792, 

 men began to wear beaver hats 

 resembling the moderti top- hat, 

 but ornamented with strings and 

 tassels. About 1840 the modern 

 silk hat was first worn in England. 



Straw hats were introduced into 

 Britain quite early, but their mo- 

 dern popularity only dates from 

 about 1850, when the so-called 

 bowler hat, made of hard felt, also 

 came into vogue. In the 20th cen- 

 tury the silk hat fell considerably 

 out of fashion, being reserved more 

 and more for ceremonial occasions, 

 and soft hats known as the Hom- 

 burg and Trilby came into favour. 

 Clerical Hats 



The clergyman's hat of soft felt 

 has a long ancestry, and the hats 

 of bishops and deans are survivals 

 of a bygone fashion. The red hat 

 of the cardinal was bestowed about 

 1250 by Innocent IV, that colour 

 symbolising the cardinals' willing- 

 ness to shed their blood for the 

 Church. A feature of recent years 

 is the general wearing of hats by 

 women, the bonnet having been 

 superseded. They are of innumer- 

 able shapes, and range from a 

 simple hat of straw, trimmed only 

 with a plain ribbon, to the most 

 elaborate devices of millinery. 



HAT -MAKING. The main types of 

 hats in civilized countries are also 

 either made of felt or of straw, 

 in silk and velour, etc. The 

 silk hat has a foundation normally 

 of several layers of calico stiffened 

 with shellac. The foundation is 



