Figure 1.--This cabinet card shows a class at an unidentfied school. The boys look to be about 13 years old. We suspect that it was either a grammer school or a public (elite private boarding) school. The building looks more like a grammar school. Some of the boys are wearing smoking caps. Some may be peaked caps, but some are definitely smoking caps. They are done without tassels. They have a letter which was the name of the school. We are not sure if it is an 'H' or 'M'. The mount suggests the 1890s. The studio was Holden in Swansea.

The smoking cap is not a cap normally associated with schools. It is a casual adult style, worn with smocking jackets during the Victorian era. They were alternatively called thinking or lounging caps. They were a brimless cap, often ome with tassles. The purpose was to keep the hair of smokers from smelling of smoke. This was the same for somoking jackets which prevented clothes from smelling like smoke. They were also worn to keep the head warm. They were worn by gentlemen, meaning men of means, while smoking in the privacy of their home. They are believed to be of Eastern orgins--whether Chinese, Arabic, or Turkish is unclear. We notice at least one schools where the boys wore these caps. We suspect it was not the only school, but there do not appear to have been very many. The school here was probbly located in Swansea, a coatal cuty in Wales (figure 1). A reader writes, "Thanks for the info. I never knew the purpose of smoking jackets. Always thought they were something so called rich people wore for adornment. I remember TV characters as late as the 1950s wearing them in TV programs such as Ozzie Nelson."