Figure 1.--Here we see the boys of Whitgift Grammar School boys parading through Croydon on Founders Day just after World War I in 1920. Most of the junior boys wear knicker suits. The senior boys wear long pants suits. It looks like the junior boy prefects were also allowed to wear long trousers. Click on the image for a closer look at the boys. Also notice the Eton collars they were going out of style at about the same time as the knickers. There is one boy wearing an actual Eton suit with the short jacket. He is allowed to wear long pants. There is also an interesting aspect to this image beyond schools. Notice that Britain in 1920 was still in the horse and buggy era. We see only one truck at the bavk of the boys. Without America, Britain and France would have fought World War I virtually entirely with draft animals which is what Germany did.

Knickers during the 1920s became quite rare as a school uniform item. Most boys wore short pants or the older boys wore long pants to school. We note that in period catalogs that short pants were still often referred to as knickers. We still see knickers at the beginning of the decade. Whitgift Grammar Schoo; here in 1920 is a good example (figure 1). The junior boys wore knickers and the senior ots long pants. They wore their knicker suits with long socks pulled up over the bottm of the knickers. While we still see knickers at the beginning of the decade, they rapidly went out of style and by the end of the decade we no longer see boys wearing knickers in England any more. The photographic record mostly shows boys wearing short pants in the 1920s. Nor do we commonly notice knickers in catalogs by the end of the decade. Some school photographs still show knickers at the bginning of the decade, but only the private and grammar schools that had set uniforms. In the state primary shools whee children wore their own clothes, knickers are very rare.

Created: 6:12 PM 9/9/2017
Last updated: 8:49 AM 9/10/2017