subs. (old university).—A nobleman undergraduate; a TUFT (q.v.).
1628. EARLE, Microcosmographie. His companion is ordinarily some stale fellow that has been notorious for an ingle to GOLD HATBANDS, whom hee admires at first, afterwards scornes.
1889. Gentleman’s Magazine, June, p. 598. Noblemen at the universities, since known as ‘tufts,’ because of the gold tuft or tassle to their cap, were then known as GOLD HATBANDS.
