Figure 1.--While most children wearing pinafores were girls, some boys wore them as well. The children at this small English village school were photographed in the early 1900s. These two children from an English village school appaer to be boys. Notably one appears to be the oldest boy at the school. Click on the image for a close look at ome of the girls wearing pinafores. Image courtesy of the MD collection.

We notice numerous images from English and Scottish schools in the late 19th and early 20th century of girls wearing white or light-colored pinafores to school. We believe that this was very common. In many old images, the children are lined up in front of their school and virtually all of the girls are wearing pinnies. At this village school all of the girls exept one are wearing a pinafore over their dresses. We have even less information about boys wearing pinafores to school. The few images we have are from England and are all rural village schools. There are so few images involved that we are not sure if this was only a fashion at village schools or if pinafores were also worn in city schools. Most show pinafores and are smocks being worn by very young boys. A few images show a very small number of older boys wearing them as well. At this particular village school it looks to us that at least two boys are also wearing pinafores (figure 1).

An English reader writes, "I thought you would find that image of interest. I'm not sure that any of the boys are wearing pinafores but who can say for sure? The child on the left could be a boy with short hair or a girl who has put her hair up. Like boys being breached at a certain age, I do believe that girls would not put up their hair before a certain age, but perhaps this convention wasn't adhered to in rural life."

HBC thinks that the child with glasses on the right is probably a boy. Note the right part in her hair. Wecbelieve, however, that the child on the left looks very much like a boy. He has a left hair part. I think it is likely too that boys and girls would have stood together, note that is with the other child in a pinny that looks like boy. Also note the separation on the bench between him and the girls. Most telling, however, is the sleeves of the older boy in the pinafore. He is wearing the some kind of dark colored, beaten up sweater that many of the the other boys are wearing. Plus he seems to be wearing kneesocks with his knees or tops of his knickerbockers showing. The other girls are wearing dresses way below their pinafores or in the case of the child with glasses a very long pinafore. In addition, note that his pinafore, but not that of the younger boy, is different than those worn bu the girls. He does not have shoulder frills but rather plain short sleeves. This is very different than the pinnies most girls wore to school.

Created: March 27, 2003
Last updated: March 28, 2003