Figure 1.--Detail of a 1849 photograph showing a still boyish suit with a short jacket worn by Edward. Notice the boyish cap.

I'm not sure when Edward and his brother were first allowed to wear more adult-looking clothes. Images taken in 1855 shows the Prince of Wales and his brother beginning to wear adult looking suits. Edward was avout 14 years old, and Alfred was only about 11. About a year or two latter when Edward was 15, he began to wear long adult-looking frock coats. In another mid-1850s photographs, the boys are not wearing grown-up looking long frock coats. Instead they wear white collars larger than their fathers--looking somewhat like the tight-fitting Eton collars that English boys were beginning to wear. I'm not sure how widely Eton collars were worn by English boys in the 1850s. The style by the 1870s, however, had become commonly worn by older English boys as well as affluent boys in France, other European countries, and America

Figure 3.--The Prince of Wales at the age of 15 about 1856 was wearing quite adult looking.

Created: February 26, 1999
Last updated: May 12, 2001