When the Second Doctor burst forth onto our television screens it appeared for short time that Doctor Who may have acquired a rather eccentric hat fancier as its new Doctor. Decked out in a battered stove pipe hat, the Doctor was quick to remark upon hats he found enticing. In his premiere serial, The Power of the Daleks, the Doctor complimented Bragen on his hat which he found very smart. “I would like a hat like that” he told the Bragen, Vulcan’s Head of Security and rebel leader.
The Doctor wears his stove pipe hat whilst reading his 500 Year Diary in The Power of the Daleks
In his next adventure, The Highlanders, the Doctor quickly spotted a bonnet with eagle feather and Jacobite cockade. Putting the hat on the Doctor said to Polly, “I would like a hat like that. How do I look?” Polly replied, “It’s got words on it. With Charles our brave and merciful Prince Royal, we’ll greatly fall or nobly save our country”. The Doctor’s response was “Bah, Romantic piffle”. He then threw the bonnet onto the ground.
The Doctor again spoke of his desire for others’ hats in episode four of The Highlanders. When Ben pulled a tam-o’shanter over his face the Doctor responded for the third time in his short tenure with the phrase, “I would like a hat like that”.
A collection of tam-o’shanters. There are very few still photos, and no film whatsoever, of the Doctor’s second adventure, The Highlanders
Alas, the Doctor’s obsession with envying others’ hats ended in The Highlanders. His own penchant for wearing hats similarly dissipated as his stove pipe hat was quickly relegated to the TARDIS’s chest. He donned hats from time to time thereafter, but never again would he have signature headwear. His recorder would be seen a little longer, however it too would soon find itself gathering dust somewhere within the realms of the TARDIS.
The Doctor’s recorder lasted just a little longer than his signature stove pipe hat of early serials
In the tradition of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, we will take a liberal interpretation of the word “hat”. If it was good enough for Python not to take “Blessed are the cheesemakers” literally, and to accept that “it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products”, then it’s good enough for The Doctor Who Mind Robber. “Hat” will therefore refer to any headpiece or item of any nature whatsoever which was placed upon the Doctor’s head. Join The Doctor Who Mind Robber as we investigate the Second Doctor’s fascination with headwear. To chart the evolution of the Doctor’s headwear all serials are listed in broadcast order.
A publicity shot of Patrick Troughton wearing his trademark stove pipe hat and playing a recorder
1. The Power of the Daleks
The Second Doctor wears a stove pipe hat in his first serial, The Power of the Daleks
The Doctor, Ben and a Dalek in The Power of the Daleks
2. The Highlanders
Ben, The Doctor, Polly and THAT hat in The Highlanders
The Doctor briefly wore a Jacobite bonnet before dismissing it as “Romantic piffle”
Disguising himself as a women, the Doctor wears a head scarf in The Highlanders
3. The Underwater Menace
The Doctor wears an unusual form of headwear in The Underwater Menace
Continuing his tradition for dressing up, the Doctor dons a hippy type bandanna and dark glasses in The Underwater Menace
4. The Macra Terror
The Doctor in a drum majorette’s hat in The Macra Terror
5. Fury From the Deep
The Doctor kept his head warm down by the beach in Fury From the Deep
6. The Wheel in Space
The Doctor wears a strange contraption on his head in The Wheel in Space
7. The Mind Robber
The Master of the Land of Fiction hooked the Doctor up to the computer in The Mind Robber
8. The Krotons
The Doctor takes the test in The Krotons
9. The Seeds of Death
The Doctor is caught in so much foam that it even covers his head in The Seeds of Death
10. The War Games
The Doctor and Zoe wear Army caps in The War Games
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
The Doctor Who Mind Robber 
I love that hat. Wish I had one. Although I’ve seen claims that it’s a much rarer Paris Beau and not a Stovepipe. The one thing that puts me off wanting one more is that it’s a beaver hat which, after my journeys to the Stockport Hat Museum, I now know is made from the hairs of the beaver and not the skin with hair attatched. After beavers ran out here (for some reason) hat production went over to rabbits.
FM
p.s. I also love Hartnell’s Astrakhan, although fear what it’s made of, and have just seem someone claiming it’s a Karakul. My head is spinning.
the hat in the budget Abraham Lincoln costume kit is pretty similar.
I just realized something: the various producers of the series were always trying to stick nearly every Doctor in a hat when each made his debut! Hartnell had his Astrakhan in An Unearthly Child. Troughton wore that Stovepipe in his first couple of serials. Pertwee pilfered a fashionable black hat along with the rest of his clothing in Spearhead From Space which I don’t think was ever seen again. It wasn’t until Tom Baker and Peter Davison that you would have two incarnations who would wear a hat long-term. Colin Baker never wore one (I don’t know where he would have found something to go with THAT costume) but Sylvester McCoy brought back the hat tradition. We didn’t see any more hats after that, but in the last few years Matt Smith’s Doctor has shown a fondness for Fezzes and Stetsons.
Colin Baker wore a brightly rainbow-coloured cellophane visor when he went fishing in The Two Doctors. Does that count?
Yes, Eleven does seem to have picked up that fondness for hats! LOL! And bow ties!
I was hoping you would include the, um…headdress from “The Underwater Menace.” I think that was definitely his most distinctive piece of headgear. Those Atlantians sure were flamboyant!
See No. 3 – The Underwater Menace. Is that the headdress you were referring to?
Yes, it is. I was trying to say that I agreed with you having it on the list, but I guess that wasn’t quite what I wrote. Sorry!
Another thing to note is that Troughton still wears the Paris Beau in episode 1 of the Underwater Menace, although telesnap evidence seems to show that it shrunk quite a bit after Highlanders! It reappears at the end of Episode 4, albeit on the head of Polly and not the Doctor.