There have been many types of state schools for elementary-age school children. The 19th century had a great variety of schools such as ragged schools, board schools, national schools, and many others. Many of these schools were charity schools and not financed by the national government. By the turn of the century, English elementary schools were offering basic educatin for children up to boys of up to 13or 14 years of age. At the time tere were no free state secondary schools. In 1944 a new law created primary schools and began establishing free state secondary schools.
England slowly developed a state educational system in the 19th century. In this regard, England lagged behind several other European countries like Prussia which regarded education as important in developing a modern state. Important elements in Britain were deeply suscpicous of the long term impact of educating the general public. Many schools were charity institutins or supported by churches and local government only slowly did a national educational system emerge from these schools. There were many different tyoes of schools, ragged schools, board schools, national schools, and many others. HBC at this time has few details about these schools. It does not appear that uniforms were required. Rather the boys just wore their ordinary clothes. I'm not sute just when primary schools were first established or at leadst were first called primary schools. This may have been the late 19th century. These schools through the 1940s included boy right up to secondary school age, which would mean boys of 13 or even 14 years of age. There were no free secondary schools for boys from families of modest means. Unless they could get financial assistance to attend a grammar school, this would be the end of their education.
The Forster Act was the key English legislation founding a national public school system (1870). It began as a system of primary schools. The primaries would become schoolswith ann 8-year orogram for chikdren uop to 13-14 years of age. A key law creating the modern structure of English secondary education was the 1944 Education Act. It reflected the growing political clout of the Labor Party and the aim was to expand educational opportunity. The law had some features that would be now viewed as elitist, especially the 11 plus exams to gain access to the best secondary schools. The 1944 law restructured the scools, creating primary schools for boys up to 11 years, and the boys from 12-14 were to be educated in the expanding secondary system.
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Various kinds of schools offered primary education to English children by the 19th century. there was a diversity of historic schools Many of these schools were types of primary schools. England lagged, however, behind America and the German states in offering a national system of free public schools, a process that began (18th century). Britain had Parliamentary government, but it was hardly a democracy. The suffrage was very limited. Most of the population could not vote. There were even rotten boroughs where there was only one voter--usually an aristocratic land owner. And most of the well to do, especially the land-holding aristocracy, largely controlling Parliament well into the 19th century were suspicious of educating the the children of the families on their estates. The captains of industry were not as opposed, but were not at all sure it was a good idea. The clash between land-holding aristocrats and the rising industrail class first played out in the acrimonious debate over the Corn Laws (1840s). By the mid-19 century, public (at the time called 'popular') education had become an important national issue. If Prince Albert has not died prematurely, we are sure he would have become ia major figure involved in this heated debate. Church organizations opened schools as did some municipalities, but there was no national system. Of particular importance were the Church of England's National Society and the nonconformist British and Foreign School Society. The British Government had begun to financially these two bodies (1833). By mid-century, however, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the churches were unable to create an educational system on the scale needed. A Royal Commission on the State of Popular Education in England, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Newcastle (Henry Pelham) was appointed to study the issue (1858). The Duke oversaw a detailed study of the state of public education in England and to consider what measures might be required to expand and offer an inexpensive education for all, including the working class. This was the first of three Commissions appointed to study education in England and Wales and recommend needed action (1858 and 1864). Scotland was not include because the Scotts had already launched a system of public schools. Parliament finally decided that all children should be educated and passed the Elementary Education Act (Forster Act) (1870). This implemented the recommendations of the Newcastle Report which a decade earlier had urged Parliament to provide 'sound and cheap' elementary schools for all children aged 5-13. The education provided by these schools was at first far inferior to the level of instruction the private schools. One author insists that the first schools created were 'a whole educational process in themselves and one which is by definition limited and by implication inferior; a low plateau, rather than the foothills of a complete education'. 【Blyth, p. 21.】 At the turn of the 19th century, the education of girls was still very limited. Many parents were not all that interested in educating their daughters. By the time the British Government began studying the school situation, this had begun to change I(1850s). And by the time Parliament acted (1870s), there was a growing consensus that girls should be educated. As far as we can tell, Parliament did not address this issue. But the local authorities as they opened schools did. We have not yet been able to determine the extent of single gender schools and coed schools. It should not be thought that there is only one level of state primary schools in England. This is confusing to Americans because the standard in America is six grades (years) of elementary school with kindergarten often in the same building. There is some variation, but that is the general pattern. The pattern in England is more complicated. Primary schools before World War II were the schools that most English schools attended and they educated children through about age 14 after which children left school. These primary schools were called full-term primaries. After World War II and the educational reforms, it became much more common to attend secondary school and children began their secondary education at age 11 years. School authorities began reorganizing the primary schools. This did not take place all at once. So in the late 1940s and even the 1950s there were still some full term primaries. Gradually the primaries schools were reorganized into infants schools and primary schools. A child normally would be in an infants school covering the first few years up to ages 7-8, then primary school covering the ages up to 10-11 years.
English elementary and primary schools generally did not have uniforms until recently. Many of the new primary schools began instituting simple uniforms in the 1960s. Most commonly these were jumpers, grey shorts, and kneesocks. Rarely did these schools have blazers, but many required the boys and girls to wear ties. By the time that the new primary schools had
been created, the fashion of school caps had begun to go out of style, so caps were usually not worn. The state schools of course serviced families of modest means. As a result the jumpers and kneesocks usually did not have the colored trim identifying the schools. Many boys wore the kneesocks without turn-over-tops and colored bands. The shorts were usually the less expensive style that was not lined. An English HBC contributor who attended a primary during the 1950s recalls that his school did have a uniform with a blue cap and blazer. It was, however, optional, and hardly any one wore it. He has a playground photograph and the only boy in the uniform was David Marsh. He rembers him as a boy from an architypal lower middle class. Some boys wore the cap and not the rest of the uniform, but his memories, unfortunately are vague. Since there were no uniform rules as such, he never paid much attention at the time. He does remember that they were not much incouraged to wear the uniform. The teachers did not give little pep talks about wearing the uniform. Interestingly, he does remember the natty uniforms worn by the boys at a local prep school. The wore brown and yellow caps and blazers. The primary school boys referred to them as the brown and yellow boys. He says, "Coming from a school where dress was free and easy, we were iprobably impressed by the uniformity." Primary schools appear to have put a much greater emphasis on uniforms in the 1960s and 70s. There was not national uniform. It was a decission up to each school, but many did enforce uniforms. Most often it was a simple iniform of sweaters, short pants, and kneesocks. Expensive blazers were usuallu not required although some were adopted. Uniforms at the primary schools have changed in the 1980s and 90s. Many schools introduced colored jumpers or less expensive sweat shirts. Many of the sweatshirts have the school name or logo and are usually bright colors, quite different than the grey jumpers once universally worn by English primary children. Many schools dropped the requirement that boys wear short pants. Some continue, however, to require shorts during the summer. Others still require shorts for the younger boys.
Some information is available on individual elementary schools. We have archieved quite a number of primary schools in our HBC schoolmsection. This includes a wide varieryb of these schools, inckudung cuty schools, village schools single-gender schools,cod schools, over a wide range of years. This includes the full gammet of their existence because England did not begin creating state primaries until after the invention of phorography. This began with the Education Axt (1870). There were primary-level schools before this, but no state primaries.
Some personal accounts are available describing the uniforms worn as schoolboys:
England--The 1950s
England--Primary and grammar school: 1950s-60s
England--Primary and grammar school: 1950s-60s
England--Bill's primary school: 1970s
England--Primary and grammar school: 1970s
England--Literary notes
Blyth, WAL. English Primary Education: A Sociological Description Vol. II: Background London: (Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1965).
Related Links: Careful this will exit you from the Boys' Historical Clothing web site, but both sites are highly recommended
Apertures Press New Zealand book: New book on New Zealand schools available
School Uniform Web Site: Informative review of British school uniforms with some excellent photographs
Boys' Preparatory Schools: A lovely photographic essay on British Preparatory Schools during the 1980s with over 200 color and black and white photographs.
British Preparartory Schools: New E-book on British preparatory school
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
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