Individual English School: St. Andrew's Infants School
Figure 1.--A photographer's board describes this portrait as St. Andrew's Infants School No. 2. We are not sure what that means, but in a school with 5-7 years olds, it may mean the 6-year olds. We mostly see girls wearng starched white pinafores, but there may be two boys mixed in with the girls. We note difficulty idetifying boys and girls in19th century photographs, but here the girlsare easily identfiable even if the white pinafores are not considered. Click on the image to see the No.3 class. There are far fewer pinafores, but again there might be two boys. This is another 1890s portrait, but may not be the same year.
There are many St. Andrews School in England. In this case we know which one. It was the St. Andrew's in Derby, a city in Derbyshrev (north central England). An infants school is a little confusing because it sounds like a nursery school. These were schools mostly found in England and Wales. An rather than a nursey school, it seems to be a school combining Kindergarten and early primary schools, essentially children about 4/5-7 years old. In a period in which boys and girls were commonly kept separate, these schools often were coed. The image we have, a cabinet card we think from the 1890s. It shows the a class of mostly girls. Which could be a girls' school, or a coed school with separate classes for each gender. -A photographer's board describes this portrait as St. Andrew's Infants School No. 2. We are not sure what that means, but in a school with 5-7 years olds, it may mean the 6-year olds. We mostly see girls wearng starched white pinafores, but there may be two boys mixed in with the girls. There is no other information available. We notice a St. Andrew's in Derby today. it is an Anglican primary school. The school we see here may have been an Anglican school, the the origin of the modern primary. However there is no historical information on the school's web site which is a shame as a history woud a valuable school project.
