Henry Hunt’s White Hat: The Long Tradition of Mute Sedition

Abstract

This chapter examines Henry Hunt's signature white hat in the context of the use of the tradition of using colours and material objects to signify oppositional opinion while evading prosecution for sedition. It traces the performativity of mute sedition from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, while focusing on the French Revolutionary period and the widely understood nature of Hunt's headgear for his followers and admirers.