Figure 1.--These prep school boys, probably in the early 1980s wear their blazers and caps when coming to school. Many prep schools in the 1980s were dropping the cap as part of the school uniform.

Virtually every preparatory school boy through the 1960s wore a school cap and a few still do even in the 1990s. I'm not sure precisely when the caps were introduved. Some prep schools date to the mid-19th century, but they did not become common until the late 19th Century. Whenever they were introduced, by the 1900s the peaked cap was part of virtually every prep school uniform. Most towns of any size had a local prep school and the boys were instantly recognizable in their destinctive caps. One HBC contributor reports, "In the 1950s when I was a school boy, there were several prep schools in the town catering to dayboys. They all insisted upon the traditional uniform of cap, blazer, shorts and stockings. The boys in those uniforms really stood out. My favourite was Church House School, whose pupils wore a chocolate brown cap and blazer with gold ribboning. We used to call them the 'Brown and Yellow boys'." Caps continued to be commonly worn at prep schools into the 1970s by which time the cap had been discarded at virtually all other English schools. Even at the prep schools, however, caps begin disappearing in the 1970s. Many schools had dropped them by the 1980s, however, quite a number of schools continued to require them and still do in the 1990s, especially for the younger boys.

Created: November 28, 2003
Last updated: November 28, 2003