England - and particularly London - is known for its rainy weather, and accordingly regarded as a city of umbrellas. So it should come as no surprise that it was an Englishman - Jonas Hanway (1712-1786) - who made the umbrella as we know it today popular. Hanway’s memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey honours his commitment to abandoned children and prostitutes, but does not mention his groundbreaking service to the rain umbrella. It should be noted that before people in England and elsewhere used umbrellas to protect themselves against the rain, the "portable roof" was employed primarily to provide shade from the sun. The English word "umbrella" reveals this original function, as it derives from the Latin word "umbra", meaning shadow, with "umbrella" being a poetic word form meaning "little shadow". Regardless of whether its function was to ward off the sun or rain, umbrellas were considered purely a feminine accessory.

This was brought to a commendable end by the London tradesman Jonas Hanway, who made the umbrella into the indispensable companion of the British gentleman. Around 1800 an umbrella weighed around 10 lbs., as its frame consisted of wooden rods and whalebone. Even Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, owned an umbrella made of wax canvas which included a dagger hidden in the handle. And again an Englishman, Samuel Fox from Sheffield, a subject of her Majesty Queen Victoria, invented the steel frame in 1852 which eliminated the umbrella’s unwieldy heft. Due in some part to tariff-free raw materials from its colonies, England was able to produce inexpensive umbrellas - with production costs often below a penny. In Charles Dickens’ novel "The Pickwick Papers" voters in Eatonswill were bribed with expensive gifts for their wives in the form of "45 green umbrellas for seven shillings and sixpence".

From then on the umbrella has hardly changed: black, slim, and precisely rolled it still today protects the gentleman in the City of London and the rest of the world. We continue to this day to sell custom-fitted umbrellas in our store, all of which are made by hand. Umbrella handles, in the meantime, have developed into an art form all their own. Whether gold-plated or in sterling silver, leather, horn, tortoiseshell, ivory, precious woods and cane, such as bamboo and Malacca, or with an integrated flashlight, pencil, watch, pill box, compass or drinking glass, almost all still exist and we continue to carry them just as we have for the last 111 years.

As early as 1715 the Parisian manufacturer Marius proclaimed the invention of the pocket umbrella, and in the 19th Century there were many attempts to make the umbrella easier to transport. In 1852 John Gedge announced a self-opening rain umbrella from Paris.

The real breakthrough, however, was realized in the 1920s by Hans Haupt in Berlin. He constructed the first telescoping pocket umbrella (up to then all small umbrellas had been foldable models), and with it founded the Knirps company in Berlin ("Knirps" is a German word with meaning akin to "little guy" or "squirt"). The "Knirps" then began to revolutionise the world of umbrellas. In 1936 another innovation hit the market from Germany, the first automatic pocket umbrella with the name "Lord & Lady".