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Numerous English photographs show girls wearing pinafores to school in the late 19th and early 20th century. Large numbers of images English children lined up in front of schools with all the girls wearing pinafores. This seems particularly common in the late 19th century, althougjh we do not yet have a precise chronology. Other images show only some of the girls wearing pinafores. Most commonly they were white pinafores with frills at the shoulders, but we have also noted pinafores with patterns as well as colored pinafores.
We have little information about boys wearing pinafores to school. The few images we have are from England and are all rural village schools. There are so few images involved that we are not sure if this was only a fashion at village schools or if pinafores were also worn in city schools. Most show pinafores and are smocks being worn by very young boys. A few images appaer to show a few older boys wearing them as well.
We are not positive when English children began wearing pinafores to school. We are espdcially unsure about the early 19th century, in part because of the lack of photographs. Another factor to consider is that state education expanded greatly in the second half of the 19th century. Much smaller numbers of children, especially girls, attended scgool in the early 19th century. We believe that pinafores were very common, especially in the mid- and late-19th century. Pinafores began to dcline in the 20th century, especially after World War I (1914-18). They did not, however, disappear entirely. A British reader tells us, "Before her engagement, Princess Diana worked in an up-market, upper class children�s day nursery, where press photos showed the children, boys included, wearing very old-fashioned, almost Edwardian-style, pinafores. There was one photograph I recall of Diana with two pinafored children, at least one boy I think, with the sun highlighting her from behind that occassioned some unflatteringcomments. Another press photograph was of Diana coming back from the corner shop with a carton, or bottle, of milk. You could see she was hurrying from her stride, to limit the time she was �in range� of the cameras. But the most interesting thing was that she was wearing exactly the same style of pinafore that the children at the nursery wore. If you could get them from a press agency, HBC could really update your information on both pinafores in general and pinafores for boys."
The children's hair styles are an important issue in assessing many of the available school impages of English children wearing pinafores. The boys seem to all have short hasir cuts which are commonly done in bangs, commonly without a noticeable part. Some older boys have styles with parts. Here left parts appear to have been much more common than right parts, although this needs to be confirmed. The girl's hair styles are more complicated. We believe that virtually all of the children ith long hair are girls. What we are less sure about is all the girls with short hair. We believe that until girls bgan bobbing their hair after World War I (1914-18) that long hair was highly prized and considered to be very important to any young woman. Many of the girls did have long hair, often with a right or center part. Clearly many girls, however, had short hair. I am not sure if that was a style seen appropriat for girls before they got older, or if there was some other reason for all the girls with short hair. A British reader tells us, "The only reason that comes to mind is hygiene - perhaps the girls with short hair had their heads shaved at some time because of head lice / nits? Still an occasional problem at schools nowadays, when I was at junior school in the late 1950's we had regular inspections by the school nurse looking for nits in our hair." HBC readers may want to consult the HBC girls hair style page.
We note a wide range of styles for pinafores. Somde were very plain, tilitarian garments while other pinafores were dressy ones with lace and ruffled trim. Some pinafores were very small, only covering a small portion if the child's clothing. Other pinafores were much larger, except for the lack of sleeves, covering nearly as much as a smock.
We have noted pinafores being commonly worn at British primary schools during the 19th and early 20th centyry. Unfortunately many early images are of the whole school wih little avialble detail. We have some excellent school images from the early 20th century showing us the various styles of pinafores and who was wearing them at several English schools. The images show that the pinafore in England was primarily worn at schools by girls, but in the early 1900s some boys also wore them. We have no information at this time on the extent to which boys may have worn them in the 19th century.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1840s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[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]
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