Medieval foot travellers often used a plain wooden staff with a handgrip and through the ages sturdy sticks have continued to provide support for elderly and infirm people and for ramblers, hikers and trekkers. Additionally, from the later 1400s onwards, walking sticks began to be carried as fashionable accessories. By the 17th century gentlemen’s walking sticks were common accoutrements and generally appeared decorative, rather than functional: fine quality polished woods were mounted in silver or silver gilt and were sometimes ornamented with precious gemstones. Sticks fashioned from ebony or white wood tended to be called ‘walking sticks’, while those of Malacca (rattan) and imported bamboo or cane were usually termed ‘canes’.

During the 1700s elegant walking sticks gradually replaced dress swords as a symbol of gentility. Slender canes were mounted in precious metals with heads of stone (for example, onyx or agate), ivory, amber or porcelain. A small box or pomander containing sweet-smelling herbs and spices could be affixed to the head of a stick and holding the cane to the nose became a contemporary mannerism, especially among professional men including physicians and undertakers, whose work involved contact with unpleasant aromas.

Throughout the 19th century fashionable canes and sticks remained an important gentlemanly accessory, always carried with formal day and evening dress, with favourite types being made of ebony, polished blackthorn, bamboo and cane with ornate handles, mounts and tassels. Canes and sticks remained popular until World War One: in 1907 the Army and Navy Stores advertised an impressive range including rattan and bamboo canes and sticks of cherrywood, ash and oak with silver or gilt mounts. Sticks intended chiefly for walking were stouter and had plain, crutch, crook or staghorn handles. After the war, with the growing use of motor vehicles, sticks gradually became outmoded, although elegant canes remained de rigeur with formal evening dress until the late 1930s.