Umbrella

Umbrella (Lat. umbra, 'a shade'). As a shade from the sun, the umbrella is of great antiquity. In the sculptures of Egypt, Nineveh, and Persepolis umbrellas are frequently figured (see Vol. I. p. 517). In the East, however, its use seems anciently to have been confined to royalty, having the ceremonial significance of the Baldachin (q.v.) or Canopy (q.v.). In China, Burma, &c. umbrellas, especially as sun-shades, are very familiar still. In Greece and Rome umbrellas were regularly used by women, but by men only if they were content to be regarded as effeminate. The custom was probably continued in Italy from ancient times; but at the beginning of the 17th century the invention seems to have been little if at all known in England. In that century, however, it came into use as a sun-shade for the luxurious; and in the reign of Queen Anne it had become common in London as a screen from the rain, but only for the weaker sex. Gay's Trivia (1716) speaks of good housewives treading through the wet 'defended by the umbrella's oily shed.' In that century it became not unusual to have a common umbrella in coffee-houses; and Notes and Queries (e.g. 5th series, vol. vi. pp. 202, 313) contains many allusions to parochial umbrellas, kept to protect the bare-headed clergyman at funerals. These were made of leather, and were accordingly very heavy and cumbrous. The first person of the male sex who had the moral courage regularly to carry an umbrella in the streets of London was apparently Jonas Hanway (q.v.)—a practice he persisted in in spite of obloquy for thirty years, when his example began to be followed. Still it was long regarded as a sign of infirmity or effeminacy to use umbrellas, and those who did so suffered much unpleasant jeering in consequence. Umbrellas and parasols (the name allotted to the sun-shade, which the word umbrella properly suggests) were at first all brought from abroad, chiefly from India, Spain, and France; now the manufacture of umbrellas has reached an enormous extent in Great Britain. Cotton, oiled silk, gingham, alpaca, silk, and various mixtures of silk and wool are in use for umbrellas. The substitution of steel for whalebone frames became common about the middle of the 19th century.