Figure 1.--This English boy has his portrait taken in Bayswater, a part of London. Bayswater is the area north of Kensington Gardens and Bayswater Road is one of the main through roads in London. The boy was probably photographed in the 1870s. He looks about 7-8 years old. He wears a cit-away jacket, waistcoat, and I believe bloomer knickers. Notice the embroidery on the knickers. Usually the jacket was more likely to be embroidered than the trousers.

We still see mostly younger boys wearing knicker-length pants in the 1870s. This was especilly common with cut-away jackets. Our English archive is growing, but we do not yet have a lot of images from the 1870s. Most of the portaits we have found are boys wearing long pants, especially older boys. We do see shortened-length pants becomming standard for younger boys in thec 1870s, both knee pasnts and kniickerrs likr the boy here is searung. The knickers we do see are often worn by younger boys. It is not always clear if the boys are wearing bloomer knockers or regular knickers wth button and clasp closures. We note them being worn with cut-away jackets, a popular style persidting from the 1850s. We do not yet know how common they were at school. As far as we can tell, school boys still wore mostly long pants, biut it appears to be changing with younger boys. It is not always possible, however, to tell if boys are wearing their school clothes in portraits. Most private schools had uniforms. It was in 1870 with the Educatiin Act tha Britain to build atate school system. Boys at these schools did not wear uniforms. One notable trend in the 1870s were the decioration of trousers. We see suits fir boys done with heavily decorated jackets and pants. This was rimarily done with nroidery. A good eample is an Eastbourne boy. Some cut way jackets and knockers were veryb plain as wiyh the boy herec were verybplin, but we see many examoles of highly deciraed suits.

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[The 1900s] [The 1910s] [The 1920s] [The 1930s] [The 1940s] [The 1950s]

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web style pages:
[Jackets] [Long pants suits] [Blazers] [Kilts] [S ailor suits] [Short pants suits]
[Ring bearer/page costumes] [Eton suits]

Created: 4:16 AM 2/22/2014
Last edited: 7:14 AM 2/16/2024