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English school uniform: individual schools -- The 1870s
English School Uniform: Individual Schools--The 1870s
Figure 1.-- This cabinet card portrait looks more like CDV with red edges and a thin white border. The name of the sydio is stamped on the back. There is no front information. There is not date on the card, but the style of the card helps to date it. We would probably date it to the late-1860s. The dealer dates into the early-70s. All told we think about 1870 is a good approximation. There is no information about the school, but we think it is a state primary in or near Sutton-Coldfield, which as it was located 7 miles northeast of Brimingham became a commuter town and now suburb. England at the time was finally beginning to build a comprehaensive free public education system. There are about 50 boys there. We think this was all one class.
We begin to see quite a number of numerous English school portraits for the first time in the 1870s. SDchool photograph seems to be only at ther berginning phase. A lot of the English school portrait we have found from the 1870s so far look to be from private schools, especially prep school portraits. Families that could afford private schools could easily afford to purchase prints of their children at scchool. We think this was because the idea of school photography was still relatively new. And state schools had not yet begun to regularly organize school photographic sessions. But the introduction of albumen prints (CDVs and cabinet cards) in the 1860s, significntly broughy down the cost of photogrphy. In addition the, the Education Act of 1870 essential launched Britin's public school (meaning state-funded) system. Thousands of board schools, many free public primary schools, began appearing all over the country. They are all outdoor imges, so many show headwear--some hats, but mostly caps. We see a few examples of wehat would become the standard school cap, but there were quite a few popular styles. Most boys are wearuing suits. Long pants are still fairly standard although many were cut above the ankles and we see some boys wearing knee pants with long stockings.
Here we see an uidentified primary sdcgool class with about 50 students (figure 1). This cabinet card portrait looks more like CDV with red edges and a thin white border. The name of the studio is stamped on the back. There is no front information. There is not date on the card, but the style of the card helps to date it. We would probably date it to the late-1860s. The dealer dates into the early-70s. All told we think about 1870 is a good approximation. There is no information about the school, but we think it is a state primary in or near Sutton-Coldfield, which as it was located 7 miles northeast of Brimingham became a commuter town and now suburb. England at the time was finally beginning to build a comprehaensive free public education system. There are two men with the boys, presunably the teacher and headmaster/principal. The boys are mostly wearing headwear, many caps but some hats. In America, hats were more common at the time. We see all kinds of different cap styles. We see some caps that look a liitle like the classic peaked school cap that that would become so popular, but there are several other styles, including the military cap with a polished leather peak. Also notice the caps without any peal. We are not sxure what to call them. The boys are wearing a wide variety of suits with varyiing button arrangements. We only see one sailor suit. Several boys have white collars. The boys seem to be mostly wearing long pants. We see some knee pants and long stockings. The studio information on the back is T.H. Abell, Crystal Palace, Sutton Coldfield.
The [school] picture was taken in May 1877. The school is not identified, but it almost certainly was from a private preparatory school (or the prep duivision of a public (senior private) school. These were boarding schools. The boys look to be about 9-10 years old so they were not the youngest form. Note that they do not wear a uniform. This was fairly common at prep schools in the 19th century. The public schools that these boys were preparing for, however, did have uniforms. The boys all wear suits, most with long pants. Note the many varied styles of suits jackets. There ate two young-looking masers with them. Presumably one id the form master. I'm not sure about the other one.
We do not know the name of the school involved here. We believe, however, that a photograph from the Robinson family album shows the boys at home on school vacation. Edward Robinson appears to have brought a school friend home for the school holiday. The boys wear suits with Eton collars. While we can not be sure, we believe this is what the boys wore at school.
Here we have another image from an unidentified English school. It looks to us like another prep school. The portrait is unidentified, but as it is a high quality image, we wanted to use it. It looks to us like a a prep school class or perhaps a boarding house at a prep school. The teacher is holding his baby. There is no uniform, but all the boys are wearing suits. Note that there are no sailor suits. The prevalence of cut-away jackets and the absence of Fauntleroy items suggets to us that the portait was taken in the 1870s.
