English School Uniform: Activities--Unidentified School (1930?)


Image 1.--This school photograph has us confused. The background suggests to us that it is a preparatory boarding school. Many of these schools were boarding schools established in rural manor houses. Move your cursor to the image to see the rest of the class.

This school photograph has us confused. The background suggests to us that it is a preparatory boarding school. Many of these schools were boarding schools established in rural manor schools. These could be the older form. They look about 13 years old, perhaps children in the upper form of a prep school. I am not sure about the date. The image is not dated. At first I thought it might be the late 1940s, but now think it might be the 1930s. Perhaps our British readers may have a better idea. I think the long stockings that the girls are wearing for example may have been more common in the 30s than the 40s. Another factor is that the boys are wearing kneedsocks with colored bands on the turn over tops. The problem we have with the image is that while it might be a prep school, most prep schools at this time were single gender schools. Perhaps they could be the junior students in a public (private secondary school), but again these were mostly single gender schools. A posibility is a grammnar (selective secondary) school, but the background does not look like a grammar school to us. Hopefully our British readers can provide some insights to us. A Canadian reader writes, "I remember English-speaking girls wearing school uniforms like this when I was in school during the 1950s. This photograph reminds me of a English-speaking girl I met on the bus every day." An English reader writes, "I suggest this was one of those small privately owned schools of which there were many more in the era depicted. They would have often have been established by the owner /headteacher and sadly died with that person. They could be boarding or day. They could often be mixed but defied the usual categories of Public/Prep/Grammar. Merely private suffices. This looks like a secondary school class. As this looks like they are dressed for PE or some other sporting activity(Sports day?) it is hard to judge but the gear just doesn't look like secondary modern or early comprehensive, prep schools were mostly younger kids than this and single sex..public schools were also mostly single sex." At this age, the children could be in the last year of a prep school or the first year of their senior school. I don't think it is sports day. Several children wears sneakers, perhaps they just came from the games field. The boys mostly were not wearing ties (one boydoes hve a tie), but this open collar style was accepted at some schools. Notice the girls also do not wear ties.








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Created: 9:38 PM 8/1/20043
Last updated: 9:38 PM 8/1/2004