Figure 1.--We note some interesting aspects to the clothes the boys are wearing. We notice similarities and differences with how the boys are dressed. Here there are different headwear and jacket styles. Both Petley and Morris wear the style of smoking cap we constantly see in these images. The boy in the middle is an R Morris. We know nothing about him, except that we believe he is a school friend.

Here we see William with two boys that we believe to be school friends. This is a perfectly normal image to expect to see from the Victorian era, but in the context of the Robinson album it is very unusual because it is a studio portrait. We do not know the school that the boys attended. The location od the photographic studio may provide a clue. We note some interesting aspects to the clothes the boys are wearing. We notice similarities and differences with how the boys are dressed. Here there are different headwear and jacket styles. The headwear is especially striking.

The Boys

Here we see William with two boys that we believe to be school friends. It shows that William Robinson (here about 12 or 13) and J Petley (who has appeared in other images in this series) had been friends for some time. Petley is on the left, and Robinson on the right. The boy in the middle is an R Morris. We know nothing about him, except that we believe he is a school friend.

The Portrait

This is a perfectly normal image to expect to see from the Victorian era, but in the context of the Robinson album it is very unusual. Nearly all the images of people from the total of 140 in the album were taken at Chart Sutton Vicarage. This is a portrait from 1877 (early in relation to the others) and was taken in a professional studio, before the bulk of these images were made. The portrait is an album print on thin fragile paper pasted into the album rather than on carboard like CDV prints. Thus we unfortunately do not know either the photographer or where the studio was located.

School

We do not know the school that the boys attended. The location od the photographic studio would provide a clue, but unfortunately is not available. If it is indeed taken at school, the difference in the clothing is interesting.

Clothing

We note some interesting aspects to the clothes the boys are wearing. We notice similarities and differences with how the boys are dressed. Here there are different headwear and jacket styles. Both Petley and Morris wear the style of smoking cap we constantly see in these images. William Robinson is here wearing a bowler hat. Both Petley and Morris wear a style of jacket that is not seen in many of these photos; that of one that buttoned low in the way that most jackets do today. Morris has particularly large lapels to his jacket. William is wearing the type of jacket we would expect from the other images of him. All boys are wearing waistcoats. Both Morris and Robinson's waistcoats are fairly normal, but Petley's goes right up to the neck. Robinson is also wearing a watchchain. The collar of Petley's shirt is worn over the top of his waistcoat and we do not know if he wears a tie. Morris's shirt appears to have an unstiffened collar (it is unlikely he would be wearing an unironed shirt for a formal portrait). William's tie has a very wide knot in it. All the boys seem to be wearing matching trousers, but there is a small possibility that Petley was wearing corduroy trousers as there seem to be a series of thin closely-spaced stripes visible around the right knee. It is not possible to ascertain what footwear Petley or Morris wore for this portrait, but we can see William is wearing boots and he appears to be wearing some light-coloured thickly-ribbed socks or stockings.

Created: 7:05 PM 1/20/2005
Last updated: 7:05 PM 1/20/2005