Figure 1.--This unidentifed school photograph is clearly a private preparatory school group, perhaps the football team. They are poised by the football pitch with the school in the background. Notice the grounds roller. The boys wear school caps, Eton collars, and knicker suits. The boys look to be about 10-11 years old. We are not sure how to date it, but the fact it is an outdoor photograph suggests the early-20th century to us, perhaps about 1910. Put your cirsor on the image to see the rest of the group.

Knickers were worn as part of school uniforms in the late-19th century. Our 19th century archive is limited. As best we can tell knickers were mostly worn a private schools, both at prepschols and the younger boy at public (elite private boarding schools). This seems fairly common. We see both deawings illutrating school stories and in the photographic record. The group here is a good example (figure 1). While knickers were worn at some private schools as part of a uniform, boys at state primary schools seem to have mostly worn straight-leg knee pants or long pants, depending on ages and the decade. We do not see many boys wearing knickers at state primary schools. Our archive is still limited so our 19th century assessment is not yet definitive. We hope to refine our assessment because our 19th century archive expands. We do not see knickers being commonly worn to school, except as part of the uniforms required at private schools. We are not yet sure about grammar schools, meaning secondary selective day schools. The grammer schools generally followed trends at the public schools, including uniform trends. This had begun to change by the turn-of-the 20th century with knickers becoming less common. But we still see knickers in the early-20th century, especially before World War I, but only as part of private school uniforms. We have a larger 20th century archive and it tends to confirm our basic assessment, that knickers were primarly worn at private school. We see some boys with knickers suits other than school uiforms in the inter-War era, but primarily teenagers, not younger boys who mostly wore short pants suits.

Created: 8:54 PM 2/7/2015
Last updated: 8:54 PM 2/7/2015