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A photographer's board describes this portrait as Cherwell Banbury. These are locations. Cherwell is a local government district in northern Oxfordshire. The modern district was created in 1974 but the jurisdiction is much older. It takes its name from the River Cherwell. Banbury is a market town in Cherwell. We have a cabinet card portrait of very young children which the board are described as 'Infants 4'. Now we are not sure if this is an Infants School or there are Infants classes in a larger primary school. The term 'infants' is rather misleading. Today it i a school or part of a school for children who are typically between 4-7 years old. The American understanding of infant is essentially a baby or child up o about 2 years old. We are not entirely sure about British usage. The children here are very young, but older than 2 years of age. Infants 4 suggests than there are four categories of infants. We would guess that they are youngest children at the school. These children look to be about 3-4 years of age, more like nursery school age. If there are 1 year progressions, the school may have children up to 7 years of age--presumably Infants 1. We had thought that Britain began building a state primary system, meaning schools beginning with 6 year olds (1870). We are not sure when the British state schools began dealing with such young children. This presumably varied among school jurisdictions. The portrait is undated, but as it is a cabinet card was probably taken in the 19th century. We would guess in the 1880s, but we are not at all sure.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
