Milliner, Haberdasher, Caricature: the thread about Sibbie Hutton, the “Most Fantastic Lady of Her Day”
Today (February 21st 2026) is the bicentennial of the death of John Kay, the Edinburgh barber turned artist, etcher and engraver who has become renowned for his prolific caricatures which gently lampoon the great and the good of society in the late 18th century city. But this isn’t a homage to the man himself, there are many other such pieces and indeed whole books on the subject. Rather, in Threadinburgh style, we look instead at one of his lesser-known but individually notable subjects: Miss Sibilla Hutton, “without exception, the most fantastic lady of her day“.
John Kay, “Drawn & Engraved by Himself 1786”, etched self-portrait. National Portrait Gallery, London, D4970
Sibbie Hutton, as she was widely known, was a renowned milliner (maker and seller of women’s hats) and haberdasher in the city, who was famed for appearance, Kay’s 1786 etching depicts her wearing a ridiculously oversized frilly-edged lampshade of a hat and decorated from head to toe in ribbon and lace. Her fine clothing and corpulence indicates her financial success. He also shows her as the equal of the man, a fellow trader and private banker by the name of Robert Johnston.
Etching by John Kay, 1786, entitled “Mr Robert Johnston and Miss Sibilla Hutton”, no. 158. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
She was born (probably) in the late 1740s in Dalkeith, the daughter of Sibella Tunnock and the Reverend William Hutton, who led a dissenting congregation (i.e. one that had rejected and had left the fold of the Kirk, the Church of Scotland) of the Associate Presbytery, of which he was also the Moderator, in that town. John Kay also hailed from Dalkeith and was of a similar age, so was perhaps well acquainted with her before she became more prominent in Edinburgh. Her mother appears to have died during or shortly after childbirth in 1752, her baby girl Grisel dying herself a few days later.
1852 OS Town Plan of Back Street in Dalkeith showing location of the Independent Chapel and the U. P. Church, the latter being originally by the Associate Presbytery
In Old Edinburgh Beaux & Belles by David Morison, the Reverend is said to have been “a very worthy dissenting clergyman” and one who was famed for the length of his sermons. An anecdote tells that on one occasion, when preaching to the Synod, after an hour one of his fellow ministers endeavoured to give a gentle hint as to the time by glancing obviously at his watch. “when, on the expiry of the first hour, by way of giving him a gentle hint, Mr. Sheriff held out his watch, in such a way as he could not fail to observe it. “The preacher paused for a moment, but immediately went on with renewed vigour, till another hour had expired.” The other minister again pulled out his watch and checked the time, but to no avail; he carried on as he intended and did not finish preaching until three hours in the pulpit had been reached. Hutton asked his fellow later as to why he had been monitoring the time quite so obviously, the reply being “the first hour I heard you with pleasure, and, as I hope everyone else did, with profit, the second, I listened with impatience; and the third with contempt!“
After the loss of her mother the young Sibbie was raised by her father and like him was independently minded and strong-willed. From a young age she had “been remarkable for her love of ornament“, much to his annoyance. In the 1770s she moved from Dalkeith to Edinburgh and set up in business with her sister Margarett as a milliner at the Royal Exchange. This complex of buildings, now the City Chambers, was then a centre of commerce and in a time before the New Town began to feature many shops and businesses, provided some of the most modern and prestigious shop units in the city.
Coloured engraving after Thomas Hosmer Shepherd showing the Royal Exchange on the High Street in 1829, A Palladian building by John Adam forming a central palazzo. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
It is therefore a mark of the Hutton sisters’ success in business and their station in the complex social hierarchy of the Georgian city that they carried on their trade here. The old Reverend was “scandalised” by his daughter’s tastes in fashion. “Sibbie! Sibbie!” he cried, “do you really expect to get to heaven with such a bonnet on your head?” The reply came: “And why not, father? I’m sure I’ll make a better appearance there than you will do with that vile, old-fashioned black wig, which you have worn these last twenty years!”
On the marriage of her sister to James Kidd in 1782, Sibbie carried on the business by herself. This she did with “great purpose, and daily added to the heaviness of her purse, as well as to the rotundity of her person…” Regarding her appearance it was said “[her] silks, too, and the profusion of lace with which she was overlaid, were always of the most costly description, and must have been procured at immense expense“. Clearly business was good and Sibbie was good at business. She advertised prominently in the Caledonian Mercury newspaper in the 1770s and 1780s, often in the headline slots, giving an insight into the sorts of items she was dealing in.
Caledonian Mercury – Saturday 12 July 1783, advert “TO THE LADIES” from S. Hutton.
Again these are an indication of her prestige, but they also make it very clear that she was quite hard nosed and would suffer no fools or chancers:
S. Hutton wishes to carry on business for ready money; and it is expected the accounts due will be speedily paid, as by that method she is enabled to carry on business on the most advantageous terms.
Caledonian Mercury – Saturday 29 June 1776, advertisement for
S. Hutton, MillinerOther averts record that she was running a sort of lottery, the prizes being wares such as cottons, muslins, tweeds, satins, laces, silks and linens: obviously she was innovative in commerce.
Caledonian Mercury – Saturday 09 December 1786, advertisement from S. Hutton, Haberdasher and Milliner at the Exchange with details of a lottery she is running
In another 1785 caricature “A Whim – or a Visit to the Mud Bridge” (an early iteration of what would become the Mound), Kay lampoons some of the city’s reformist men who backed that project. but features a number of women, the central and most prominent of whom is though to be Sibbie. The sign on the left reads “B’s Bridge” and most likely refers to Geordie Boyd, who reputedly conceived the whole scheme, which explains why the man on the rear of the carriage is saying “Whip harder Geordie” (thanks to Graeme Cruickshank for reminding me of this). There’s a less likely probability that it refers to a Mr. Brown, the treasurer of the project, who had been bankrupted and fled with money that were meant to have financed a grand inaugural procession. Kay is probably therefore depicting the idea that instead the gentlemen who had promoted the scheme could pull the carriages themselves, the originator egging them on from the back.
John Kay etching, 1785, no. 173, “
A Whim – or a visit to the Mud Bridge“. The woman looking straight at the artist in the middle of the carriage is though to be Sibbie Hutton. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
Sibbie set the fashion trend for women of a certain social rank in Edinburgh, importing for them the latest and best items from London. On the occasions that John Kay found it necessary to lampoon women (more often his targets were the pompously self-important men about town) he depicted them beneath Hutton’s enormous hats and adorned in her laces and ribbons.
Etching by John Kay, 1785, no. 308. “Mr Pierie and Mr Maxwell”, prominent bachelors in the city either admiring, or being admired by, some fashionably dressed women. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
The ridiculousness of the hats seems to reach a peak in 1787 with one worn by Penelope Hamilton (née Macdonald), Lady Belhaven and Stenton who is shown meeting with Sir Robert Dalrymple-Horn-Elphinstone, 1st Baronet.
Etching by John Kay, 1787, no. 303. “Sir Robert Dalrymple-Horn-Elphinstone, 1st Bt; Penelope Hamilton (née Macdonald), Lady Belhaven and Stenton”, National Galleries of Scotland collection
Clearly those who had dressed themselves in this style were a useful visual shorthand and they are repeated in his work ever-more extravagant headgear, evolving with the fashions of the time. Notice the women below sport smaller hats but with much more elaborate feather plumes than those a decade before, and one wears a more modern cut of jacket.
“
Retaliation; or the cudgeller caught“, etching by John Kay, 1801.
A Porter, Captain Hew Crawford, his sister and her companion in a comedic, chaotic interaction. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
These women are rarely named and are usually included in the caricatures to help set a scene; Kay’s targets being the named gentlemen. There is however a good chance some are indeed Sibbie Hutton, such as the lady on the far right of this image. But Sibbie differs from most of the other women he depicts not just in that she is named, but she is not drawn from the gentry and is not included as a wife or daughter of one of the men featured, she is included on her own merits.
John Kay etching, 1785, “
Major Andrew Fraser, the Honourable Andrew Erskine and Sir John Whitefoord, Bart.” The right group is made up of two women in elaborate dress with ornate feathered hats, the more rotund of whom on the right bears a very close resemblance to Sibbie Hutton.
Papers in the Dean of Guilt Court of Edinburgh (the equivalent then of the modern Planning Committee) show that in the 1780s, she was involved in a dispute with a neighbouring shopkeeper. In 1782 a complaint was made by John Grieve, merchant, that she had made unauthorised alterations to her shop, removing an internal staircase and replacing it with an external one, amongst others. Grieve made the same complaint in 1787. In both instances the case was found against Sibbie and she was ordered to put back the internal stairway. Clearly that never happened the first time and it is not clear if she did it when ordered the second time. It was around this time that, tiring of the city, perhaps tiring of the legal disputes, and also of the monotony of family visits to Dalkeith, she decided to remove herself to London and re-establish her trade there. Her sister, now Mrs Kidd, took over the Edinburgh business. After this, little more is known of Sibbie’s life except that she later returned to Edinburgh and died in Dalkeith, the town of her birth, on February 19th, 1808. Her star had perhaps dwindled by this time as her passing was little remarked upon beyond very brief death notices. Her sister died the following year.
Star of London, 4th March 1808, “
At Edinburgh on the 19th ultimo, Miss Sibella Hutton, Daughter of the late Rev. William Hutton, minister of the gospel, Dalkeith“
Thank you to Threadinburgh supporter Olwyn Alexander for drawing Sibbie’s interesting life and somewhat uniquely prominent position in John Kay’s works to me. He produced a huge volume of work, which he printed and sold widely. You can find much more of his work online at:
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