Whilst rabbit meat sold well at the markets, pelts – at first – attracted little commercial interest. Yet by the 1880s, Australian rabbit skins were being auctioned in their millions in London, a centre for felt- and hat-making.
In Australia, hat-makers established themselves where rabbits were most plentiful: in Tasmania, Victoria (where, according to Warwick Eather and Drew Cottle’s recent study, the number of hat manufactories doubled between 1870 and 1880) and in New South Wales.
Whatever the Australasian pastoralist may think to the contrary, the world cannot do without Australasia’s rabbits.
Percy O Lennon, The Queenslander, 1929.
From the start of the twentieth century to nearly 1950, Australian hatters and furriers bought around one billion rabbit skins, however most were still shipped overseas.
Over this time, the majority of export skins went to North America, where buyers sought rabbits as cheaper alternatives to, and even substitutes for, luxury furs such as sable. With creative preparation, rabbit pelts could be made to look like (and were successfully sold as) fashionably desirable furs.
Accordingly, rabbit skin prices rose dramatically. Australian papers duly reported on potential increases in the cost of hats, then a widely worn item of men’s fashion. Demand was such that anyone able to catch rabbits could make money by selling skins.
PHOTO - About 6,200 rabbits in crates at Woodstock, New South Wales, 1906.
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