Figure 1.--These three boys seem to be wearing a school uniform, a cut-away jacket with mortar board caps. They look to be about 8-10 years old, presunably schho fre\riemds. They are too close n age to be brothers. The cabint card mount looks like the 1890s to uis. They have small Eton collars. The portrait was taken in Kidderminster a town in the industrial Midlands west of Birmingham. We are unsure about the name of the school.

Oxford University's 'mortar board' became a sandard at schools throughout England. (It also became the standard style used for formal occassions at American schools and universities.) We are not sure just when this transition to school wear began. In England the mortar board was actually worn by boys as part of the school uniform. We are not sure about the 18th century, but they seem to have been widely worn in the 19th century. We have not yet found examples in the early photographic formats--Dags and Ambros (1840s-50s). But we suspect this is because we have archived so few. We see them in the English earliest photographs we have found--CDVs (1860s). The examples we have found are mostly from the late-19th century and early-20th century. We are not sure about the boy one the previous page. The boys here look to be photographed in the 1890s (figire1). We are more condident that other examoples date to the 1890s. Many of the images we have found are undated meaning we can only rough sketch out the chrnological trends. We have not noted them to any extent after World War II, with the exception of some cathedral choirs. We note the choristers at Rochester Cathedral choir (Kent) wearing mortar boards. we also notice the choristers at St. Paul's wearing mortar boards.