Figure 1.--Almost all the junior boys at Greenock Academy in 1950 wore short trousers with their blazer. HBC is unsure as to precisely what the rule. There are other differemce among the boys, especially as to socks and ties.
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Figure 1.--Almost all the junior boys at Greenock Academy in 1950 wore short trousers with their blazer. HBC is unsure as to precisely what the rule. There are other differemce among the boys, especially as to socks and ties. |
Scottish and English schools have a wide variety of names. Some are misleading. Some comprehensives, for example, kept the name of the grammar schools they replaced. Academies are private schools, often comparable to private day schools. Private schools were often named academies in Scotland, but there were not very many in England. Today in Scotland there are academies that are private schools and others that are state schools.
Greenock is in Scotland. Greenock is on the south bank of the River Clyde (Scotland), just a few miles west of Glasgow.
The term academy has different comotations in different parts of the United Kingdom.
English schools have a wide variety of names. Some are misleading. Some comprehensives, for example, kept the name of the grammar schools they replaced. Academies are private schools, often comparable to private day schools. Private schools were often named academies in Scotland, but there were some in England as well. In England the term "academy" is rare and is usually applied to specialised, usually private, schools, e.g. St Martins-in-the-Fields Academy, which is a music school, or the Royal academy of Dance.
English readers inform HBC that "academy" seems to be widely used as an alternative to "school" in Scotland and that it doesn't necessarily indicate a private school. HBC had thought it meant a private school. Certainly the origins were private secondary schools as until the 1940s there were no state secondary schools in Scotland.
Figure 2.--All of the boys wear blazers, although the color is unknown. The junior boys--with one exception wear shorts. HBC is unsure what the regulations were. |
At this time HBC has no information on the school.
The boys in this photograph look to be secondary school age from about 11/12 to about 17 years of age. The age disparity look much to wide for this to hace been a form. The school may have been quite small and this may have been the entire school.
The boys of Greenock Academy in 1950 appear to wear a standard British school uniform of blazer, tie, short trousers, and kneesocks. The boys also probably wore caps, but took them off for the photograph. It is unclear if the older boys in the back row are also wearing shorts.
The boys also probably wore caps, but took them off for the photograph. Caps were still very common in England and Scotland in 1950, but many schools began to drop them in the 1950s or only require that junior bpoys wear them.
All of the boys at Greenock Academy wear blazers. They mostly wear dark colored blazers, although HBC is unsure just what color the blazers were. A few boys (but none of the junior boys) appear to be wearing grey suits. Some schools had grey blazers, but not that the grey jackets do not have the badges on them--suggesting that they are suit jackets.
Figure 3.--A few of the junior boys wore sandals rather than shoes. There were also a few boys wearing open necked shirts without ties. Note the variety of socks. |
The boys appear to be wearing white shirts. A few wear open neck shirts, a style more common in Scotland than England. HBC is not yet sure what the rule about wearing open necked shirts was.
Most of the boys at Greenock wear ties, but a few boys wear their white shirts iopen without ties. HBC is unusure as to just what the actual rule was. It is likely that ties were required, but HBC does not know why sone boys were not wearing them. One would assume that even if the tie requirement was not normally enforced. it would have been on school photography day.
It is hard to see if any of the boys wore jumpers (sweaters). One boy does appear to be wearing a white jumper.
Almost all the junior boys at Greenock Academy in 1950 wore short trousers with their blazer. HBC is unsure as to precisely what the rule. It is likely that several of the boys in the second row were wearing shorts. Most of the older boys, however, are probably wearing longs. It is difficult from the photograph to tell what color trousers that the boys are wearing.
Although Greenock is a Scottish school, there is no indication that any of the boys were wearing kilts. HBC is not sure, however, if none of the boys are wearing kilts or if they just are not visible because of the way the photograph was taken. You might have thought that at least a few boys in the 1950s would have been wearing kilts. It is possible that some of the boys in grey jackets are wearing kilts. At many Scottish schools, kilts were a permissible option. At this time HBC is nor sure if kilts would have been more or less common in the 1950s at Scottish schools. HBC can report that kilts by the 1980s were not commonly worn with blazer, but rather with tweed jackets. Presumably the same convention would perrain to the 1950s.
Figure 4.--Note the different socks that the junior boys wear. One boy wears shoes without socks. Boys wear both plain grey and kneesocks with bands in the school colors. Several boys have let their kneesocks fall down. One boy wears lace up shoes with ankle socks. |
Boys at Greenock wore a wide variety of socks, although kneesocks were the most common. Some boys wear no socks. Others wear short ankle socks or kneesocks. Some of the kneesocks have colored bands--presumably the school colors. Other boys wear plain grey kneesocks. The type of shoe does seem to affect the socks worn--at least to some extent. Two of the boys in sandals wear ankle sockls. One of the boys without socks, however wears lace up shoes.
Almost all of the boys wear lace up shoes with a variety of socks. At least two of the junior boys, however, wear school sandals. As this photograph was probably taken near the end of the year, sandals had not yet gone out of style for boys of secondary age. HBC dos not know what these boys wore sandals during the winter.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
Related Style Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Long pants suits]
[Short pants suits]
[Socks]
[Eton suits]
[Jacket and trousers]
[Blazer]
[School sandals]