Figure 1.--This painting titled, 'The Schoolboy', was painted by William Roberts (1895–1980) and is believed to have been painted about 1930. At the time Roberts lived and worked at Chalk Farm in north London. The suject is said to have been Roberts's son, John but looks quite unlike other portraits of him. And the badge is certainly not that of St Marylebone Grammar School, which John attended from the autumn of 1930. Perhaps readers will recognize the badge. We get a good view of an oval cap badge, but as he is shown wearing an overcoat, we do not know if he also had a blazer badge.

The badges worn on the caps varied widely. We see all kinds of different badges. Often they were a crest or shields, but we also see letter logs and round badges. The variety is virtually endless. Notice the round badge at the front of the cap. We are not sure if it is a logo or crest Usually crests were not round. England of course is much more tradutional tham America. School crests and bages were much more common. In fact much more common than in any other country. School caps, albeit a different style, were common in Germany, but there were no badges like the ones for English schools. The same style badge only larger was worn on blazers or in some cases suit jackets. We think that the blazer badges were more common than the cap badges, but we can not yet substantiate this. Notice here that there is no badge on the boy's blazer on the previous page. Here we see another rounded cap badge (figure 1). The cap badges may have been more common in the early-20th century when the caps were more common than the later-half of the century that we are more familiar with. Schools were a little more concerned with uniform costs in the later-20th century. And the badge increased the cost of the caps. And we see fewer badges on blazers as well.

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Created: 5:38 AM 9/21/2015
Last updated: 5:38 AM 9/21/2015