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While we have limited information about 19th schools, we have a great deal of information about schools in the 20th century. We have acquired information on quite a number of different types of schools, both preparatory and public schools, and the type of school had a significant impact on uniform and dress trends. Private schools generally had uniforms. State primary schiools did not, however, have uniforms until after World war II when many schools began afopting basic uniforms. The grammar schools tended to follow the educational model of the public schools and this included uniform trends. After World War II, England significantly expanded the state secondary school system, most of which adopted school unifirms following the vasic look of the public schools and grammar schools. The uniform styles developed by the English schools in the mid-20th century tend to be the samne styles that are worn in many different coyntries today.
Here we have an English school. We have no information about it, but it looks to us like a state primary school. We do not know where it is located. Perhaps our British readers will know. Its looks to have been a fairly good sized school as the portrait here is only one class. The image we have is from the 1900s, either 1904 or 09. The writing on the board is not very destinct. The girls all wear dresses protected with white pinafores. We assume that means that the school required it. The boys wear a variety of suits, including sailor suits. They are almost all wearing kneepants. One boy looks to be wearing knickers and and another very long knee pants. The board with the children reads 'A31' and '2'. I'm not sure wht A31 means, but the 2 may mean the second year class.
Here we see a classroom at the Cormont Road School in London. We have been unable to find any information about the school except that is was located on Cormont Road a kind of half circular road runnng around the Myatts Fields green area in Kennington/Camberwell, London. The dealer thought this was a 1920s school portrait. We think the 1900s is more likely. We might have though there would have been more Eton collars in the 1900s, but the portrait of King Edward VII suggests strongly that the portrait was taken in the 1900s, probably the later part of the decade. We are guessing that this is a small day prep school, largely based on how the boys are dressed and the small size of the school. There are only 13 boys in the school. The boys look to be about12 years old. The rather serious teacher is at the back. Notice all the stuff on the wall this is a little unsuual for the time. The photograph is indated, but looks like the 1920s. Cormont Road was a great place for the school. The school was located next to a huge green area where the boys could do sports or other outdoors activities in the middle of London. We are not sure what the '12' placard the boy is holding means. Perhaps is was to help ientify the class when the photographer delivered the prints.
Archbishop Abbots School at Guildford in Surrey was I think a prep school at Guildford in Surrey. The School was established in 1855 and closed in 1933. The school building dates from 1629 and still exists in Guildford town, now in use as a clothing store. At one time it was in use as a workhouse. The school uniform consited of a school cap with the school chield, a blazer with piping (I'm not sure about the color), short trousers, and kneesocks. Here is the football (soccer) team of Archbishop Abbots School at Guildford in Surrey during 1908-09. The school is the building on the left. The A.A.S. on the football of course means that they are Archbishop Abbot School football team during 1908-09. The photographer was W Bradden of North Street (the same street where the school was located). There is a sad aspect to the image here. A number of these boys almost certinly died in the trenches during World War I.
This postcard-back portrait look like a small nursery school, perhaps run by two ladies or one lady and a helper. The setting looks like the back garden (yard) of a family home. The children look to be 4-5 years old, about kindergarten age. There do not seem to be any really young children. English schools, even, primary schools, were commonly gender specific, but nursery schools were commonly mixed genders. We think thsat it was quite common for ladies to set up pre-schools. There was a long tradition of this in education. The dame school was an important part of English education until the late-19h century. This and boarding houses were acceptsable ways for single women, often windows, to make as living at a time when most avenues of employment were still closed off to women. The children are dressed variously. We see some sailor suits and smocks. The gender of most of the children is obvious, but a few not all togerther clear. The date is interesting -- July 31. This is summer vacation time, suggesting child care rather than education. But the card could hve ben sent after the portrait was taken.
Here we see a class at a Catholic school in Aberdere, England during 1914. It might have been called the Aberdere School, but as it was a Catholic school, we suspect that it had a different name.It looks like a nursery school class. The children look about 4-5 years old. We are uncertain here if this class would have been part of a primnary school or if these nursery school classes were separate facilities. There is no uniform, but many of the children including a few of the boys look to be wearing pinafores.
Kirkby Thore School was located in Kirkby Thore, a small village and hill in Cumbria (northern England). It is close to the Lake District and the Cumbrian Pennines. The Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a senic range of mountains and hills in England separating Northwest England from Yorkshire and Northeast England. They are commonly described as the 'backbone of England'. The market town of Appleby-in-Westmorland is about 5 miles from Kirby Thorne. The larger town of Penrith is about 8 miles away. We have no information on the school other than a single 1921 portrait. We can see a substantial, well-lit (notice the large windows) stone building. It was a small coed school. There are 35 children. So the whole scjool was about 70 children. Schools at the time were mostly single gender schools, but small villages often single gender as there were not enough students for two chools or separate gender classes. It looks to us like an 8-year state primary. The children look to be the older children at the school, we think about 10-13 years of age. The girls wear a range of dresses and sweaters. Several of the girls wear pinfores. The boys mostly wear suits. One boy wears a sailor suit. Most wear knickers, but some wear short pants and knee socks which would become standard by the end of the decade.
There does not seem to have been any uniform in 1920 other than a suit and tie. The ties are the horizontal ties in contrast go the vertical stripes introduced later. Many boys wear dark-solid colored ties. I'm not sure what this difference represented. Perhaps this dark tie was an earlier style. Other than the tie there does not seem to be any required uniform item. An exception here was probablt a school cap, although the boys are not wearing their caps for the portrait. Almost all grammar schools at the gime had caps. A few boys were still wearing Eton coollars. The boys by 1927 are dressed more uniformily, some with crests on their suit jackets. Difficult to tell if it the boys are actually wearing a uniform. Eton collars had disappeared.
English primary schools in villages generally went by the name of the village. City schools were different. They tended to take on the name of the street or road. This worked in England because the cities were not laid out on the grid pattern, thus streets and roads tended to be shorter than in America. The school here is the Holton Road Boys School. Village schools tended to be coeducational because there werre not enough children for two separate schools. In towns and cities, single gender schools were the standard, but this had begun to change even before World War II. The school here is the Holton Road Boys School, a primary in Hartlepoolis a seaside and port town in the northern county of Durham, datig back to the early medieval era. The town grew up around a monastary. It was a large cabinet card with ruling showing the standard 1A class, meaning boys about 6 years old. The portrait was taken in 1924. The boys are not wearing suits which was common in the 1910s, but mostly jereys (sweaters). Some of the boys are wearing sailor suits. The class is notable for all the boys wearing longish-cut short pants, most with knee socks and high-top shoes. br>
I m not sure this is the name of the school, but English schools were often known by the name of the street they were on. (Streets in England tend to be shorter than in America.) A HBC reader writes, "My father was born in 1913 and was educated at an elementary school off of the New Kings Road, Fulham, London. Such schools were often divided into three parts -- the youngest boys and girls mixed together and then the older boys and girls educated in separate classes. This usually entailed a three-floored building with the infants on the ground floor, the girls in the middle and the boys on the top floor and separate playgrounds. The photograph shows my father's class when he was aged 12 in 1925 so leads me to suspect that it was taken in early autumn as his birthday was late August. There was no formal uniform but pupils were expected to 'dress up' as my recently deceased aunt described it. A study of the photo shows that this would mean different things to different families according to social and economic background particularly with so many war orphans at the time."
A 1937 portait still shows the boys without a uniform. Several trends are observable. The boys still wear suits. Most boys wearlight-colored suits, perhaps grey, but
we see dark suits as well. Most are sungle-breasted, but we see some double breasted suits. Several boys are wearing the sports collars without ties. This was obviously permitte, but most bpys wear ties. The school tie has been changed to one with diagonal stripes. The colors look the same. It still does not seem to be required. The boys wearing long trousers have extremely wide leg pants with cuffs. They were called Oxford bags. The boys wearing short trousers all wear them with kneesocks. I'm not sure if there was a school rule requiring the younger boy to wear shorts. Most boys wear oxford lace-up shoes. One boy wears school sandals. These were commonly worn by primary children, but not common in secondary schools.
Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port in Cheshire. It is located southeast of the Liverpool southern bank of the River Mersey. This wear the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. We have found a photograph that looks to date to the mid-1930s. It is a coed school. The children look to be about 10-11 years old. The boys seem to be wearing suits, some of the vests, or what look like sweater shirts. Most of the boys are wearing ties with their sweater shirts. They also wear shirt pants and as far as we can tell knee socks. The girls are waering simple dresses. We can't tell nuch more about the dresses. Several of the girls are wearing long stockings. By this time boys are no longer wearing long stockings. The photograph was taken in the school yard, but we can't see much of the school, probably a brick school.
This portraits shows what looks like a beginning class of a prep school. The boys look to be about 8 years old. unfirtunately the school is not identified. The school was clearly a very substantial one given the building in the back ground. The boys wear a standard prep school uniform, a tie, blazer, short pants, knee socks, and low-cut shoes. It looks to be taken in the 1930s. The school uniform did not change much, but the teacher's dress is helpful in dating. In this case we do not hare to guess. The group is identified as class III in June 1933. Which means that there were multiple classes for each grade (form levels). The bulding is so substantial, it would be easily recognizable. The blazer badge couild also help identify the school, but is not real clear. It looks a bit like a the Edinburg Academy badge. The building is probanly too substantial for a prep school, even a large one. Thas might mean a college or academy which included a secondary section.
This looks like a small private pre-prep day school with children up to about 5-7 years old. Notice that the children in the back row look a little older than the children in the front. The school is unidentified as The Beeches and is dated June 1937. Actually the photograph looks familiar to us, but we can't find a page we used to create with it. And as the we know the name of the school we are archiving it here. There is a name written on the back--Miss Hamikton-Pott which we assume is the director-owner of the school. There was no uniformm but the boys wearwhite or light-colored shirts and short pants. Manynareblonf skeeves. Sone of the boys wear ties. The girls errar light-colored summer dresses, many print dreses. These were basically standard fashion and school wear at the time. One notable observation is that three of the boys are wearing strap shoees rather than school sandals. By this time strap shoes were becoming less common for boys, especially boys this age. School sandals were common but not strap shoes. Not omly were thry handy for younger children who were still learning to tie shoe laces, but were also popular summer seasonal wear.
We are not sure about the name of this school. A reader tells us that it is the City Secondary School, but is unsure of the city. The imafe is coded CGS. This suggests to us the City Grammar School, but are not sure about the actual city. The due know that this form portrait was taken in October 1938. It was form 1R. I think the R might have been the last name of the form master as even a large grammar school would have only a few first forms. The children would have been mostly 11 years old. The interesting thing about the school was that it was coed. Most of the English secondary schools at the time were single gender schools.
To our surprise there were several schools called the Dene School. We thought it was a rather unusual name. This particular schoolhool was at Saltdean, on the English southern, Channel coast, about 5 miles east of Brighton. This would have plced it during 1940 right in the path of the possible NAZI invasion. Many schools along the Channel were evacuated during the War. We think this was mostly the private schools that had buildings the military could use, but we could be wrong about that. The Dene School or Dene as it was called was not evacuated, despite Luftwaaffe attackls along the coast. We have found a photograph from 1941-42. tt was run by two spinster ladies: Miss Gardner & Miss Brough. We are not sure why it was called The Dene. The school was located in a house in either Oaklands Avenue West or Bevendean Avenue West. It was quite a small school. A school like this in the 19th century might have been called a dame school. There was no uniform. The girls all wear dresses. The boys short pants. All the children seem to be wearing sandals.
We still see no required uniform in the 1940s. Quite a few Some boys in 1948 wear sports collars without ties. The ties that are worn are mostly the diagonally stripped school tie. Many boys wear short pants, but they do not seem go be required as several younger boys wear long pants. We do not know what the school rule was. The boys in shorts wear kneesocks, but not all have them pulled up like we see in earlier images. We are unsure why this was. Did some boys think that this was fashionable? Or perhaps the knee socks were not as well made as before World War II. The boys wear oxford lace up shoes, but we note one boy wearing
school sandals.
Steyning Grammar School like quite a number of British schools has an amazing hustory. The school dates back to the 17th century. It was founded and endowed as a grammar school by William Holland, an Alderman of Chichester (1614). The townn of Steyning has existed since Anglo-Saxon times. It os located in West Sussex near Horsham in the South Downs, four miles north of the Channel town of Shoreham-by-Sea. A grammar school in modern times was an acacademically selective secondary schools. Children who did well in he 11-plus exam were channeled into the grammar schools. As part of educational reforms, most grammar schools were converted into comprehnsives (1960s-70s). It was felt at the time that this would expand educational opportunity. Steyning Grammar was merged with Steyning Secondary Modern School to form a comprehensive school (1968). The combined school thus shares two sites in Steyning. The original histoic half-timbered Church Street site housed years 7 and 8 (not to be confused with age groups) until the 2021-22 academic year finished. At his time the group ('Lower School') transferred to the Towers site in Upper Beeding close by. The main Shooting Field accomodated years 9-11 and the sixth form college. A third lower school site opened in Storrington (September 2017 after the closure of Rydon Community College (September 2017). The Steyning Leisure Centre was used for some of the PE ckasses. School governors over the oppositionn of many teachers voted to convert the school to an academy as part of the Bohunt Trust. This converted to a private or independent school as the British tend to use. This is a rare example of a schoolm opting out of the state system. We are not sure why this decision was taken. The Bohunt Education Trust runs eight schools, including other secondary schools in Worthing and Horsham.
The black and white photography fooled us here. The uniforms look so similar when viewedvin black and white. We at first thought this was a single school, but then we noyiced different blazer badges. So apparently what we have is boys from several different schools in Oldham. The boys look to becabout 11-13 years old. We would guess that they are from a prep schoolmor grammar school.
They are getting autographs from an unidentifid man, presumably a popular local sportsman. The boys look delighted to be getting the autographs. We know they are Oldham schools because the photograph appeared in the Oldham Chronicle. It is not dated, but the clothes, specially the baggy shorts suggest the early-1950s.
We note boys in the 1950s wearing two different uniforms. Some boys wear a light-colored suit, perhaps grey with the school crest. Other boys wear what look likes a black blazer. I'm not sure about the difference, but assume a new uniform was being introduced. There were stripped ties and snake belts. I'm not sure about the colors. I assume that there was a school cap, but have no details. Most grammar schools in the 1950s required caps for the junior boys. It looks like short pants and kneesocks were required for the younger boys, but am sure about the actual rules. A portrait of the choir in 1950 shows almost all of the boys wearing short pants and kneesocks with the school tie. A school portrait in 1952 shows all the boys now earing the school tie. The boys wearing short pants asll wear kneesocks,
but the kneesocks sare no longer the heavy socjks with substantial turn over tops. The long pants in 1952 have very wide hems with cuffs.
Here we see a group of younger children fron the Froebelian School in 1951. The dealer insisted that the school was in Kendal, but we believe this was The Frobelian School in Leeds. We do not believe there was nore than one such school. The school was founded by Miss L. Hoe (1913). She was influenced by the educational approaches developed by the German educator, Freidrich Froebel. He was particularly interested in early childhood education. We are not sure at what age the school began with at first, but the school now takes children 3-10 years of age and thy leave at at age 11. This of course was when the 11+ examps used to direct students to grammar schools or sevondary moderns. The school is a provate day school. Here we see a musucal group, the percussion band. They won first prize at the Westmoreland Festival in 1951. We do not know if that was a school event or local community event. The children wear a basic grey uniform. The boys wear ties jumpers (sweaters), short psnts, anf knee socks. The girls wear ties, blouses, gym slios or skirts , and socks, Many state primaries adopted uniforms like this, but we belive this was not very common yet in the early-50s. Uniforms like this were common in state primaries by the 1960s. We believe that the choice was up to each school.
Here we have an unidentified school in or near East Grinsted. It looks like a private prep school to us, but all we know for sure is the location and the fact that the portrait was taken in September 1953. The children look like the older students at the school, probably about 12 years old as this is the beginning of the school year. Th voys wear long pants and short pnts suits. The short pants are worn with knee socks. The girls wear skirts witn tights. There is no uniform, although clearly the school provides some guidance. All of the boys wear ties and all but one wear suits. The girls seem more cassually dressed. This is a little unusual as most prep schools had uniforms and were single gender schools. The schools looks to be a converted mannor house rather than a purpose-built school. A photograph of a younger class at a later shows some of the boys wearing knickers, but we do not see ny knickers here.
The boys in the 1960s were all wearing the dark blazers with the school shield. The school seems to have strictly enforced the dress code. We note some boys wearing their Scout uniforms in 1961. Most of the younger boys in the early 60s seem to be wearing short trousers and knee socks. It seems to have been a school rule for the First Formers. The most mostly wear kneesocks rather than the more expensive turn-over-top socks. By the mid-1960s virtually all the boys were wearing long pants. Presumably the school had dropped the school rule requiring the junior boys to wear shorts and made it optional. We only see one of the
younger boys in 1965 wearing short pants.
This class portrait shows a state primary schooll class with their teacher in July 1963. This was at the end of the school year during the summer. English primary schools by this time were mostly coed like the school here. The school was located in Catherham, a Lonndon suburb in Surrey. Caterham was not the name of the school. There were probably several primary schools in Catherham. The children look to be about 9-years old. There was no uniform. Many primary schools in the 1960s had begun requiring basic uniforms. The girls all wear dresses. The boys all wear short pants. As it was summer, they wear ankle socks. Had in been earlier in the year many of the boys probably would have worn knee socks. Curiously as there was no uniform, the boys also all wear school sandals. We suspect that mny of the girls also wore sandals, but we can not tell from the photograph. Sandals were common for younger boys at the time, but not universal. We do not know if the school provided the parents any guidelines here. The shirts vary. Some boys wear 'T'-shirts while others wear white dress shirts and ties. Sespite the warm weaher, we also see sweaters, probanly because they were such common school garments. We note several boys dressed like a uniform school, but only one girl wears a uniform-type dress.
English state primary schools began adopting uniforms afyer World War II. Few had uniforms before the War. They were generally simple uniforms. There was, however, no national standard. It was up to the individual school to decide. Here we have an unidentified school in 1969. The school had no required uniform. Curiously there are almost no school uniform items. At many primary schools at the time, even at schools wothout uniforms, mothers sometime brough school uniform items like sweaters and shorts from the chain store school section. The boys here wear a range of sweaters with both short and long trousers. A few boys wear ties. The boys wear both ankle and knee socks with leathger shoes. The girls seem to be mostly wearing dresses, a few with sweaters.
The school only operated for a few years in the 1970s. The school continued to require a uniform. The boys wore the same dark blazer with a shield that we noted in the 1960s. We note that dress standards appear to have declined. Some boys boys wear their ties undone. We also notice some extremnely long hair styles, mostly worn by the older boys. Several of the younger boys also have long hair, but not the extremely long hair of some of the older boys. We suspect that their parents didn't allow it.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital School in Bristol is a thriving independent school for boys aged 11 to 18. It was founde over 400 years. John Carr, a Bristol merchant whant who died in 1586, provided in his will for the establishment in Bristol of a bluecoat school on the lines of Christ's Hospital, already flourishing in London. The School's charter was granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 and specifically charged it with "the education of poor children and orphans". This special and continuing responsibility is still maintained by the School's emphasis on pastoral care and by the use of its endowment income to provide a large number of day and boarding assisted places for those whose parents' means are limited. The School opened in 1590 and for years was know locally as the City school. It continued through various vicissitudes as a boarding school until 1920 when day boys were first admitted. In 1945 it became a two-form entry grammar school on the direct grant list of the then Ministry of Education. The Government decided in 1975 to end the direct grant, and the School is now fully independent, with 470 day boys and 70 boarders. In 1984 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II graciously agreed to become the School's Patron, a fitting prelude to the commemoration in 1990 of its 400th anniversary.
Yarlet School, formerly Yarlet Hall, established in 1873. It is now is a coeducational preparatory school located in the district of Yarlet in Staffordshire, England. At the time the photograph here was taken, it was an all boys boarding school (figure 1). The school was founded by Reverend Walter Earle, former Second Master at Uppingham School. This was often the case for preparaory schools, founded by clergymen or maters from public schools for younger oys to prepare them for public schools (peivate secondary-level boarding schools). The school began in Yarlet Hall, a Victorian private house outside Stafford. Theschool had close toies with Uppingham and many boys continued their education there. Earle also founded Bilton Grange in Warwickshire and then moved there (1887). He took some of the Yarlet boys there. Yarlet continued to operate under a new headmaster. Ties were expanded to include Rugby School. The school wwas converted to a a charitable trust (1970). A pre-prep department was opened (1993). Girls were first admitted (1994). The school is now fully coeducational.
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