Figure 1.-- Here we have a cabinet card portrait showing three unidentified English siblings. They look to us to be about 5-8 years old. The boys sailor suits and abd cabinet card mount suggests the 1890s, perhaps the late-90s. (Our chronolohical assessment is conformed by the reference to HRH The Prince of Wales. This rather confirms the 1890s as the Prince became king in January 1901.) Notice the white sailor collars. Notice the younger boy wears knee socks, but the older children long stockings. Their sister wears a rather plain pinafore. The studio was the Norman May & Co in Cheltenham.

we see many English boys wearing sailor suits at 5 yeras of age. This was a an age at which large numbers of English boys wore sailor suits throughout the 100 years or so that the saoilor suit in England was worn. In fact, Prince Bertie who first wore a sailor suit was 5 years old when interhalter painted his classic portrait of the young prince (1846). The photographic record shows countless 5-year olds wearing sailor suits. Beginning in the 1860s there is an ampel photogrphic record to show how popular the sailor suit became. A good example is an unidentified Durham boy about 1880. What is not entirely clear to us is the social class trends. We know that the that upper- and middle-class boys wore sailor suits. a good example is the Shepperd boys. We are less sure about working-class boys. Much of our information on the 19th century is based on studio portaits and these seem to be mostly children from fairly affluent families. Wages were mot as high in Britain as in America and this there is a larger class factor in the British photographic record. Fewer working-class Britins were able to have studio potraits taken. And notably British wages werre the highest in Europe.

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Created: 4:31 PM 4/5/20166
Last updated: 4:31 PM 4/5/2016