Figure 1.--Here we see two unidentified English boys. They look to be about 3-6 years old. The younger boy ears a large wuide-brimmed sailor gat. The older boy a sailor cap. Both seem to have streamers. We are uncertain about the date. The studio set looks like the 1870s while the outfits look more like the 1880s. The older boy as he is quite young might have worn a wide-brimmed hat as well, but these large hats were mostly worn by pre-school boys.

Much of the headwear worn by British children, especilly thre boys had age conventions associated with them. This was especially true of boys. Age conventions were a little less imprtant fir girls. The headweatr types included caps, hats, hats and berets. It should be stressed that unlike today, headwear was an important part of fashion. People did not go outdoors without headwear, including children, even very young children. There were popular styles for children with notable age conventions. We note biys wearing both caps and hats in the 19th century. We do not have a lot of informatuion on the early-19th century, but by the later-19th century we have much more information and the governing rule seens to have been, the younger the boy, the larger the hat should be. The popularity of the various styles of headwear changed over time as to an extent did the age conventions. major changes occurred after the turn of the 20th century as hats began to decline for boys and caps became increasingly prevalent, especially the ubuquitious school cap. The school cap became an iciom of English boy hood and beczame fairly standard for school age boys. As a result, age 6 years when children began school became amajor point at which boys began wearing school caps. All of this began to decline after World War II in the 1950s when headwear began to decline as we begin to see far fewer school caps by the 1960s.

Created: 7:17 PM 12/2/2022
Last updated: 7:17 PM 12/2/2022