Figure 1.--This little tennis enthuiast wear oversize headwear--a popular fashion at the time. I'm not positive what it is, but think it is a tam. His portrait was taken in Kilburn, a postal code in Northwest London. The portrait is undated, but we would guess about 1905. Notice the feather in the tam as well as the boy's toy horse.

A tam or Tam O'Shanter is a kind of over sized beret. It is associated with Scotland, but was worn by both girls and younger boys in England. Tams were also worn in England during the late-19th century. A problem here is that wev areb not always sure if the boys are wea=ring tams or beret. For example we see [Henejy?] Brittches (1870s). Another good example is Harry Shaw at a beach resort. We do not see many boys wearing them after World War I (1914-18). We have noted drawings of English boys wearing quite large tams, but we are not sure to what extent these oversized tams were actually worn. The photogrphic record shows that they were worn, but usually with fancy outfits. They seem to have been more popular for girls than boys, in part because while younger bots and girls wore them, only younger girls wore them. We see various styles and sizes. We see an example here. The boy wears a white tam with a feather (figure 1). Another exampleis Stanley Clulow who wears his tam with a kilt suit in 1899. They were worn with a wide variety of outfits. The feather gives it something of a Scottish look. The Balmoral bonnet was essentially a tam and often worn with an eagle feather.

Created: 3:03 AM 6/26/2007
Last updated: 8:28 PM 2/21/2024