Figure 1.--This is Class 3 at the Knapp Road School at Bow in the London East End. The portrait is not dated, but the dress the teacher is wearing with the puffed sleeves suggests about 1895. Class 3 would man children about 8 years old and children look to be about that age. Almost all wear white pinafores. The girls mostly wear dark dresses. We are not entirely sure what the boys are wearing, although the boy at the front right seems to be wearing a dark dress like the others. This seems rather unusual an we cannot explain it.

The Knapp Road School was located at Bow, a region in the East End of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with a history dating back to Roman Britain. We do not have a lot of information on the school. We note records in the British National Archive (1876-1952). We think that means the school was built in 1876. This would go along with the time table of British public education . Parliament passed a public education act (1870). There was Government funding of education befofe. But Britain lagged behind many other countries, especially America and Germany. Parliament in 1870 guaranteed a free primary education for all children. Which meant a major school construction program. We have found references to a boys' school and a girls' school as well as photographs of boys and girls together. We also notice a report of a school being damaged in a World War II V-2 attack. State primaries did not have uniforms, but we notice one photograph apparently from the 1890s with boys and girls almost all wearing spotless white pinfores. We are not sure what they are wearing along with their pinafores. The class is mostly girls, but we see several children that are clearly boys. We suspect that mothers liked the idea, but we are not so sure about the boys.

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Created: 3:15 AM 11/17/2019
Last updated: 3:15 AM 11/17/2019