Dolls representing the Bampton side (date unknown), including a musician figure with tiny fiddle, probably supposed to be William ‘Jinky’ Wells!! Alice, the Society Archivist at Cecil Sharp House, dug these out for me when I visited. Photograph courtesy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

However, as I began to discover, tracing the stories of these somewhat peripheral items of costume allows a history of the Morris in Oxfordshire and a handful of remarkable characters to emerge. Shoes, actually, contributed to the decline of Morris dancing in the 1800s: Morris dancers were low-waged labourers who danced to supplement their income; following economic hardship in the first half of the nineteenth century, audiences no longer gave much money and “it got like begging”, as one old Morris dancer recalled. The dancers could no longer afford to buy shoes that they danced through regularly, since they “weren’t ‘patternised’ enough”.

Hats, lasting longer, tell a multitude of stories. Sides adopted styles of headwear largely based on availability: a type that each man had access to. At Eynsham during the 1930s the men wore ANZAC hats; at Headington Quarry cricket caps have been continuously worn. During the revivals (around the turn of the nineteenth century and again in the late twentieth century) top hats, in particular, suggested ‘tradition’. The revived Eynsham side of the 1980s chose top hats stuck with pheasant feathers in tribute to a famous forebear, Edward ’Feathers’ Russell.

Feathers Russell of Eynsham painted by William Nicholson in around 1901

[See image gallery at blogs.ashmolean.org]

Headington Quarry Morris Dancers threatening Doctor Who in 1971

Once a basic uniformity is established, however, hats are often altered and decorated, displaying individuality. Hats, like other garments, are worn in and worn out, handed down, adapted. Joe Marns’ hat, at the Vale and Downland Museum, is an autobiographical, battle-worn object covered with mementoes and insignia. Being particularly customisable, hats are adorned with flowers at Whitsun, studded with badges marking festivals danced at or affiliations to clubs or political views, bedecked with ribbons, pimped up with diamante, and, regularly, soused in beer from an upturned glass.

Eynsham Morris dancer, photographed by Suzy Prior. Image © Suzy Prior.

This often happens with museum objects.  A name becomes attached to something and it takes on a whole other level of meaning, even if the association is debatable.  These are the objects that you are likely to remember and tell people about after your visit.  And so their
ability to captivate is perpetuated.  I would love to find more hats and shoes like this.  A case full of personal objects belonging to the great and the good would be wonderful.
Imagine their collective power!

Something else that has got me thinking was an article I read in “Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers” which was about military footwear.  What struck me was the
contrast between the wonderfully flamboyant hats which I had seen at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and the woefully inadequate boots that soldiers were issued with right up until the First World War.  Of course their superiors had beautifully crafted, handmade boots, which matched their dapper headwear but neglecting to provide sufficient boots left the army weak and many battles lost.  Can you imagine how useless and unshod army would be?  By some accounts the boots were so badly made that they fell apart after one day of marching.  Some sham mass production techniques used clay in the soles to add weight and therefore the illusion of quality.  These boots also fell apart at the first contact with water.   And despite huge improvements in production by the beginning of the C20th, we’ve all heard of trench foot suffered by soldiers during the First World War.  That’s all rather gruesome to imagine.

If you want to read more the book’s full details are below.  I have been referring to this book a lot through my research as all the essays are fantastic.  Well worth a look.

Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers edited by Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil, published in 2006 by Berg, Oxford and New York.  ISBN-13 978 1 84520 443 3  or  ISBN-10 1 84520 443 3

Unpacking my Grandfather by Penny Boxall

The jackets – all but his best – the slacks
and braces were displaced, one way
and another. The shirts were immaterial.

We used the old shot tweed
for lagging, a waxed coat for a play –
it stood for something we could name,

a useful byword anyone could catch.
The semaphore of his ties was sunk
with him, though the waders stand

absurdly upright, jammed with husks,
animals hedging their bets at the first frost.
The brogues are under a fence of coats, paired

in two ready steps. Above them
his hat hangs like an afterthought,
as if he’s wandered through the open

doors into the half-lit film of evening
and will be back for it, given time.
It’s shaped to him, stained with a forgotten

weight of rain and curdled smoke.
Of all his things this is the last,
when even the shoes have broken

their step, upped and left. Even on
the hook it is firm, it is full to the brim.

I have also spent much of my time with my nose stuck in a book. My favourite topic at the moment is related to magic.  I’m exploring the way that a top hat makes a man in a suit become a gentleman and the bride’s veil changes a girl into a woman.  Headwear transforms a person and very publically declares the wearer’s new status, often with rigidly set rules particularly in military, legal, religious and educational structures.  Footwear makes a different kind of change on a person, more personal and intimate.  In fairy tales and stories footwear often reveals the true nature of a person, and sometimes this results in a gruesome demise.  I’m thinking here, of course, of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes.

I’m also preoccupied with trying to understand why we want new things.  Shopping for shoes fulfils a deep desire, admittedly for some more than others!  But why?  What drives us to want new things to adorn ourselves?  Why do beautiful shoes bewitch us?  I came across a wonderful idea in the Journal of Material Culture that could go some way to explain it.  “Parallels can be drawn between magic and enchantment of advertising campaigns… and the belief in the magic of objects such as amulets and charms…” (Jude Hill The Story of the Amulet, 2007).  I will definitely be discussing this with staff at the PRM over coffee next week.  I’m sure we can find some shoe related, magic objects.