Figure 1.--We believe that many English boys wore tunic suits in the first half of the 19th century, at least middle-class boys. This is difficult to substantiate because the photographic formats during the 1840s-50s (Ambros and Dags) are much less common than in America. This English Ambrotype shows an unidentified boy at the mid-19th century. He wears a dark tunic and matching long pants. Notice the military-styled peaked cadet cap the boy wears with the suit. We also see a white Peter Pan collar and a ribbon bow. Notice the belt buckle which shows he was wearing a belt with his tunic although we cannot see it.

We have begun to acquire some information about the garments worn with tunic outfits. Many were suits, although the pants might not match the tunic. We note many boys wearing military caps with tunic suits. We see several styles of these caps. The military caps may be asociated with schoolwear. Military caps seem the most common headwear at least boys with short hair. We xare unsure what kind of headwear boys with long hair wore with tunics. Short hair was of course much more popular. Tunics were often worn as suits. We have noted various types of trousers worn by English boys with tunics. The photographic record shows boys wearing pantalettes, long pants, bloomer knickers, and knee pants being worn with tunics. We see them being worn worn with both contrasting and matching pants. Younger boys might wear pantalettes. We see some boys in the first half of the 19th century wearing strap shoes and white stockings with tunic outfits. This may have been common around home. For school wear the boys seem to have worn more sunstantial footear. We are not yet sure about this. The footwear and hosiery are similar to skeleton suits, probably both outfits were worn by younger boys. We know little about the conventions or social class destinctions concerning English boys wearing tunics. We think tunics were mostly worn by boys from upper and middle-class families. We believe that they were less common with working-class boys. The limited number of images, however, makes this difficult to assess defintively.

Headwear

We note many boys wearing military caps with tunic suits. As far as we can tell, they did not normlly mtch the tunics. The cap the boy here holds is a good example (figure 1). We see several styles of these caps. The military caps may be asociated with schoolwear. Rather like the cadet caps worn in Germany. Military caps seem the most common headwear at least boys with short hair, at least during the mid-19th century into the 1870s. Here we are still working on the chronology. We are unsure what kind of headwear boys with long hair wore with tunics. Short hair was of course much more popular. Nor are we sure about the late-19th century yet.

Tunic

The tunic itself was done in a range of differet styles, decoration, color, length, and construction. There were both belted and unbelted tunics. We note both tunic suits (with matching pants) and tunic worn with other pants. There were many stylistic variations. Many tunics were plain. Others were done with a range of elaborate stylistic elements. One popular style was a diagonal element across the front of the tunic. We see many tunics with little or no decoration and others with elaborate decoration such as embroidery. We notice different colors being used, but because of the black and white photography of the day we are left without information on the different hues. We suspeck that blue, brown, and grey were the major colors, but we have noted other colors such as burgundy and forrest green in the few paintings we havve found. We notice a range of lengths. Some tunics were quite short, just a little below the waist. Others were down to the knees, in some cases even below the knees. There were variations with the construction. Some were done wih and without collars. Most were done with long sleeves, but we have seen some with half sleeves. Belts were very common. This was an ornamental item with no practical purpose. Some tunics were worn with matchingh pants making up a suits. Most of the early photographs show tunics without matching pants. Subsequently we brgin to see matching outfits.

Belt

Many, but not all of the tunics we see nglish boys wearing were worn with belts. This ws entirely an ornamental item. A belt worn over a tunic had no practical purpose, only creating a defined waist. Apparently this was important to many of the the mothers outfitting their boys. It also added a bit of a military look. We note both wide and narrow belts. It is a little difficult to see, but the boy her is wearing a dark belt. Usually the belts were chosen to contrast with the tunic. In the case here mother has chosen a dark belt with a dark tunic. We know there wasa belt because we can see the buckle--two roundels (figure 1). The belt not only varied in color, but in width. We see both narrow and wide belts. The belts we see in the mid-19th centurty seem mostly leather. We are not yet sure about the late-19th century. We see fabric belts at the turn-of-the 20th century and in the early-20th century, although tunics were not nearly as popular at the time as in the mid-9th century or in America at the time.

Pants/Trousers

We have noted various types of trousers worn by English boys with tunics. The photographic record shows boys wearing pantalettes, long pants, bloomer knickers, and knee pants being worn with tunics. We are just beginning to develop information on the reltive populatity of these types. The popularity of these different types of trousers has varied over time, although we are just beginning to develop chronologicl informtin. . We note mostly pantalettes and long trousers being worn in the early and mid-19th century. It is a little difficult to ork this out as our English archive is still limited. Bloomer knickers seem common at the turn of the 20th century. We also notice English boys wearing open leg shorts. A good example is an English boy in 1916. This was near the end of the popularity of tunics in Englamd. They are much less common in the 1920s.

Skirted Garments

English boys usually wore pants/trousers with tunics. We note a few images with boys wearing skirted garments rather than trousers. We have not found any American examples, but we have found a few English examoles. The ones we have found so far come from the mid-19th century. We have not found any examples from the late-19th century. It is not entirely clear what was being worn under the tunic. It could be a dress as the tunic covers the bodice, but it could also be a skirt. Because of the tunic, all we can see is the hem of the skirt. We see some tartan pattern, so it may have been an effort to give a skirt a kilt look. We do not have enough examples here to do much in the way of assesing this tunic option yet

Underwear

We notice some English boys wearing both petticoats and pantlettes with tunics. Of course this was just the younger boys. A good example is an unidentified London boy in the 1850s. Petticoats are difficult to spot as they often were shoter than the tunic and thus covered up. Panatalettes were easier to spot and they were made to cover legs before skirted hems. There is a complication here. Some tunic suits had matching pants, others were worn with white or other light-colored pants. This was a popular style throughout the early-19th century. And it us difficult telling the difference between plain pantaletes and light colored pants/trousers. We are not sure, for example, if one of the Bean boys is wearing plain pantalettes or pants (1829). In this case they extend all the way to the ankels. Another example is Henry Elton (1831). He seems to be wearing plain pntlettes because they are shorter. We have the same problem with Denis Bond in the 1840s is wearing plain pantalettes or light colored pants. What we can not tell from the images is the fabric used which maks a differnce. .

Hosiery

We note boy wearing both long stockings and socks with tunics. This is somewhat different than America. We see socks much less commonly, especially in the 19th century. The socks were commonly white in the early and mid-19th century. We can not yet confirm this for the early-19th century, but have actual photographs conforming white socjs for the mid-19th cntury. We begin to see dark socks in the late-9th century. Here our hosiery information is limited by our limited photographic archive. The fact that mny boys wore long pants with tunic suits is another problem. We begin to see boys wearing knee socks with tunics at the turn of the 20th century. This may have begun earlier, but we do not have photograohs confirming it. This is something we do not see in America. Boys wore long stockings in the 19th century. We begin to ee three-quater socks at the turn if the century, but never knee socks. Tunics suits were not as popular in Englabd after the turn of the cntury as in America. Thus we have fewer imafe to assess hosiery trends. This and the numbr of English boys wearing lon pants with tunics makes our ssessment here only preliminary because of rhe small numbr of available images.

Footwear

We see some boys in the first half of the 19th century wearing strap shoes and white stockings with tunic outfits. This may have been common around home. For school wea the boys seem to have worn more sunstantial footear. We are not yet sure about this. The footwear abd hosiery eensimilar to skeleton suits, probably both outfits were worn by younger boys. we have some images from the late-19th century. We note both strap shoes and high-top shoes. We are still asessing this topic.

Created: 7:16 AM 7/30/2014
Last updated: 8:11 AM 9/27/2021