In 1784, PM William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on men’s hats. A fairly basic hat costing 4 shillings incurred a tax of three pence. An expensive creation costing 12 shillings or more carried a tax of 2 shillings (1 shilling equals about £3.50 today). It may seem quirky to us today, but it was reasoned at the time that a humble man would buy perhaps just one cheap hat, whereas the wealthy would purchase many expensive hats. Some milliners and people tried to get out of paying the tax (tax avoidance is nothing new!) by saying that their headgear wasn’t actually a hat. So in 1804 the legal definitions of a hat were revised to include all headgear and almost every material from which it could be made. Forgers of hat-tax revenue stamps could face the death penalty. The tax was repealed in 1811.