|
The Holderness School is a respected private school in New Hampshire. It is an Episcopal (Anglican) boarding school for boys located south of the White
Mountains in the town of Holderness, now adjacent to Plymouth. It was founded in 1879 along the lines of an English public (private secondary) school. The
school was originally only for boys but is now, like most New England prep schools, co-educational. Sports, particularly ice hockey and skiing, have long been an
important tradition at Holderness. The first headmaster was the Reverend Frederick Moreland Gray, an Episcopal priest. Father Gray presided over the school
from 1879 to 1886, starting with a small group of only 15 boys but quickly enlarging the student body to at least twice that number. The boys ranged in age from
about 14 to 19 and were being prepared for entrance to colleges and universities. The boys tended to come from rather affluent families, which is still the case at
Holderness, although, despite their privileged backgrounds, the boys are required to engage in a certain amount of physical work and public service such as helping
rake leaves, working in the kitchen, or visiting the elderly in hospitals and nursing homes.
The Holderness School is a respected private school in New Hampshire. It is an Episcopal (Anglican) boarding school for boys located south of the White
Mountains in the town of Holderness, now adjacent to Plymouth. It was founded in 1879 along the lines of an English public (private secondary) school. In America these schools were called preparatory or prep schools. The
school was originally only for boys but is now, like most New England prep schools, co-educational. Sports, particularly ice hockey and skiing, have long been an
important tradition at Holderness. The first headmaster was the Reverend Frederick Moreland Gray, an Episcopal priest. Father Gray presided over the school
from 1879 to 1886, starting with a small group of only 15 boys but quickly enlarging the student body to at least twice that number. The boys ranged in age from
about 14 to 19 and were being prepared for entrance to colleges and universities. The boys tended to come from rather affluent families, which is still the case at
Holderness, although, despite their privileged backgrounds, the boys are required to engage in a certain amount of physical work and public service such as helping
rake leaves, working in the kitchen, or visiting the elderly in hospitals and nursing homes. This was not the approach at English public schools and is still not the case at most today.
We have some images of the school over time illustrating life at the school. The available images are interesting because they illustrate school life rather than static class portraits.
A photograph shows an early group of Holderness teenage boys gathered
in their dormitory before going to bed. They all wear white nightshirts that
come down almost to their ankles. The date of the photograph is a bit
uncertain but a history of the early years of the school places it about 1882.
Notice that the nightshirts have openings in front down to about waist level
but are worn buttoned all the way up to the neck, probably because New
Hampshire winters were cold and because there may have been only minimal heat
in the sleeping quarters. Another photograph, dated 1885, shows three Holderness boys playing banjos. This trio seems to have been a musical group at the school. Note that the boys are quite formally dressed in suits with narrow trousers, shirts
with wing collars, ties, and hightop boots (figure 1).
A photograph is dated 1923 and shows the Holderness basbetball team
with their two coaches (note the two adults--in the bow tie at the rear left
and in a three-piece suit at the rear right). I did not realize that at least
some basketball players of this period wore knee socks with striped tops.
This style became common, I believe, in the 1970s and 1980s, but, so far as I
know, was not so usual in the 1920s. Note the knee pads. Another photograph is dated 1925. Note the period touring car. Here we see a
group of Holderness boys ready to greet a new arrival to the school. Most of
the boys seem to be wearing rather tightly fitting knickers, but the boy at
the extreme right wears knee pants and long black stockings. They seem to be
about 15 or 16 years old.
This photograph shows Holderness boys playing ice hockey in 1930-31. The uniforms consist of rather tight jerseys, unusually short shorts, and long
stockings. Modern hockey shorts are knee-length pants, rather like basketball shorts. We are not sure what the earliest uniforms were like. We have noted these short-cut shorts in the 1910s. In the case of one boy (second from the right), the shorts are not long enough to cover the tops of his long stockings. I'm not sure when the longer-styled shorts were introduced.
As best we can tell the school did not have a uniform. The boys apparently were required to wear suits and ties. We notice the boys wearing both knickers and long pants. The older boys here are wearing long pants in 1885 (figure 1). A photograph from 1925 shows boys wearing knickers. I don't think there was a school policy about this, although we have no definitive information on this. Probably this was up to the boys and their parents to decide.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Main Chronology Page]
[The 1900s]
[The 1910s]
[The 1920s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
[The 1990s]
[The 2000s]
Navigate the Relate Boys Historical Clothing Style Pages
[First Communion]
[Confirmation]
[Long pants suits]
[Short pants suits]
[Kneepants]
[Knickers]
[Kneesocks]
[Long stockings]
[Eton suits]
[Jacket and trousers]
[Button-on clothing]
[Blazer]
[School sandals]
[Bangs]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing School Uniform Pages
[Main U.S. individual school page]
[Main U.S. individual school chronology page]
[Main National School Uniform Page]
[Australia]
[England]
[France]
[Germany]
[Ireland]
[Italy]
[Japan]
[New Zealand]
[Poland]
[Singapore]
[Scotland]
[Singapore]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Page
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Girls]
Musical instruments]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossaries]
[Satellite sites]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]
