Figure 1.--This English cabinet card school portrait is undated. We believe iy was a board school taken in the 1880s. We see some Faiuntlroy items like larger coollars whuch suggests it was not taken in the 1870s. Actually English cabinet cars are rare in the 70s. And we see few sailor suits that were popular in the 1890s. Reader dating assessments are welcome. These look to be the younger children at the school, children about 5-6 years of age. Long stockings were very common in the 880s,but we see mny of the younger children wearing socks here. This would not hve been the case in America.

The developing state school system was increasingly well established by the 1880s. There was no uniform at these schools. We notice quite a range of clothing at the new board schools flowing from Education Act of 1870. Another huge step was the Elementary (primary) Education Act of 1880 which established cimpulsory education as a matter of law. The Act required children aged between 5-10 years of age to attend school. And it included means of ebforcenet. Attendance Officers were empowered round up truant children, even going to the homes of children who were attending school. This was a specual problem with poor children and their families. Many families were living on the edge of survivall and the pennis the children could wear was very important for them. One effort to address this problem was to wstablish employment certificales for children over 10, but under 13 years. It proved that they had reached a certain level of education. Fines were established businesses employing children who lacked this certificate. By the 1880s there were thousands of these state primary schools and the fees initilly charged were dropped. As there were no uniforms required, the clothing we see in early school potraits are a good reflection of popular fashions at the time. And as more school portraits are available. We have an increasingly large photographic record availablre to assess popular styles. Our understanding of girls' fashions is somewhat limited by the fact that so many girls wore pinafores covering up their dresses. As the boys did not wear pinafores, we have great detail about what they wore to school. Here we are talking about mostly pre-teen children. At the time, few working class children went on to secondary schools. Most of the boys wore suits. Suits at the sime were standard garments for boys. These were mostly collar butting suits, but we also see cut-away jackets. Older boys might wear lapel jackets. We do not see many sailor suits yet. They would become a major feature of 1890s schoolwear. By mid-decade with the adebt of the Guntlero Craze we begin to see boys with large collrs, something thar we do not see at the beginning of the decase. We do not see as many large bows as we see in America. We note boys wearing knee pants and long stockings. Younger boys wire socks. There were uniforms at the private schools. We see more preparatory schools in the 1880s. While there were no standard preparatory uniform, but Eton suits and knicker suits were very common at public schools. Headwear varied we see peaked caps and mortar boards. We note more boys wearing knee pants and knickers, but motly younger boys. Older boys still mostly wore long pants

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Created: 7:44 PM 5/27/2016
Last updated: 12:55 PM 9/13/2021