Bradford is a city in the north of England that increased in wealth and importance for a short time during the nineteenth century when it was a center of manufacturing, particularly of textiles. This heyday, which still meant poverty for most of the people in Bradford, was short, and the long decline of the city had already begun when Eliot wrote The Waste Land.

It is a sign of Eliot's integration into the culture of his adopted country that he was able to create a two-word phrase which would have conveyed various nuances to his British readers. A "Bradford millionaire" would be a man from the north who had grown up relatively poor and uneducated, though probably not nearly as poor as the people he came to employ. He would have a rough-sounding accent and probably rather rough manners. Once his wealth passed a certain point, he would often try to buy his way into polite society by purchasing a large country house and perhaps donating money to political parties in the hope of attaining a title of nobility.

During the garden parties and ceremonies that would accompany the Bradford millionaire's social rise, he would have to wear the formal clothing of the class he aspired to join. This is why Eliot places the "silk hat" uncomfortably on his head. The self-made Bradford millionaire is imitating the upper classes by adopting this headgear.