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Photography was invented at about the same time that public meaning state sponsored free schools were becoming established in Europe and North America. Thus we have for the first time realistic images schools in the 19th century. Unfortunately, much of the histoic photographic record is not identified. Sone photographs have captions on the front or back, but most do not. So we are left to speculate in just what kind of school is pictured. Some informatiion can be deduced from the image. We can usually figure out the age of the children and chromnological period. And if there is a building in background that is an important clue as is the way the children are dressed. So we can often figure out the type of school, but to varying degrees of cedrtainty. And some images are a real mystery. We wecome any insights that readers may have.
Pre-scools are commoin place today. They are needed because so many women now work. This as less true in the 19th century. There were dame schools for younger children and by the late-19th century. Today many private schools, ,ostly preparatory schools, have attached or associated pre-schools. That was not so common in the 19th century and early-20th century. We think this might be the type of sdchool pictured here. The portarit is not dated, but it bis a cabineyvcard. We would guess it was taken in the 1890s. The dealer suggested the 1900s. There are csome very young children, the older children may be 5-6 years old. Commonly boys began preparatory school about 8 years of age, but at the time age limits were more flexible. The school in the backgroiund suggests a well established school not a small school operated for just a few children in a private home. The portait shows a group of 25 children, all smartly dressed and standing and seated together in several rows, accompanied by their teacher and a youthful helper (figure 1). The photographer was George Holdsworth of Hepworth, Huddersfield (West Yorkshire). George Holdsworth (1865- ) was born in Holmfrith (south of Huddersfield) in Yorkshire. He was the second son of a cloth (woollen) draper and farmer, James Nathaniel Holdsworth (1839-) and his wife Hannah Berry (1841-). Although he worked in the clothing trade as a boy, he probably became a photographer soon after his marriage to Ellen Ann Wilkinson, daughter of a Fulstone wollen weaver (1881). Heis believed to have established a photographic studio nsoke time before the 1891 Census when he is shown living in Glossop, Derbyshire, a countty south of Yorkshire. He apparently also had a studio in Huddersfield. That does not mean that the school was in Huddersfield. Holdsworth is known to have taken school portaits. and traveled to do school, thus the studio informatiion is not a good indicator of where the school was.
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