Popularity in England

Uniquely English

Once the idea of school uniforms took hold, it was seized upon by the British as obsession. The many new public schools founded in Victorian England to meet the needs of administrators for an expanding empire followed the example of the established public schools. The new preparatory schools founded to prepare younger boys to enter the public schools also adopted uniforms. The new uniforms were a visible symbol as a way of establishing their social status. No where else in Europe or in America did distinctive uniforms for school boys become such a uniformily accepted principle. The British school uniform followed empire as new public schools were founded in the colonies which adopted the styles set by the established schools--no matter how unsuitable to tropical climates.

Very involved

More than is generally recognized today, children from affluent families in the 18th, 19th, and even early 20th Centuries were likely to have very extensive wardrobes. A school boy even in the late 18th Century could own a dozen shirts, almost as many cravats, half a dozen waist coats and tightly fitted breeches, hats, gloves, stockings, hankerchiefs, and heeled shoes. Their wardrobes became much more complicated in the 19th Century, especially as sports became more organized and specialized sport equipment became required. When girls started going to boarding schools in the 19th Century, their wardrobes were even more elaborate. A typical girl in a boarding school might own a dozen dresses of varying styles and formality for differt occasions, a decorative quilted petticoat, a fancy hat, a hooped petticoat, decorative pinafores, a cloak, a corset, heeled shoes, stockings, gloves, and hankerchiefs.

Figure 3.--This school has a uniform of stripped blazers. Most English schools by the 1980s discontinued stripped a multi-colored, in part because of the higher costs of the stripped ones.

State schools

The English state schools followed the lead of the prestigous public schools also began requiring uniforms. The initial public schools to require uniforms were boarding schools, but many private and state day schools also began requiring uniforms. The Education Act of 1870 finally commited Britain to financing a modern school system for every child. Efore the passage of the Act influential groups in Britain had opposed educating the poor. The number of state schools rpidly increased. Almost all of the new state grammar schools (academically selective schools) aping the standards of the public schools, decided on distinguish their boys from the pupils at the less academically oriented elementary and secondary modern schools. Even today, comprehensive (non-selective secondary school) schools that wish to be associated with the grammar school tradition adopt blazers in the school colors. It is ironic that originating as a badge of poverty, school uniforms came to repreent high social status.

Destinctions

It was within the public schools that uniform destinctions were most significant. Small destinctions in the uniform were used to delineate status within the school itself. In a peculiarly English fashion, uniform defined the hierarchy and reminded the new boy of the deference he owed to the prefect and the 'blood'. As late as the 1950s, unwritten rules about dress: how many buttons done up on the blazer, what angle to wear the straw hat, and many other small details were still used to mark the ladder of rank and privilege.

Change in the 1960s

The social revolution of the 1960s ended much of the English obsession with school uniforms. There had been schoolboy rebellions against uniform in the past. World War II had ended some of the more expensive or ludicrous uniform items, but it was the widespread youth revolt of the late-1960s that had the greatest impact. In most schools, uniform remained, though modified in the direction of informality. Most of the sillier hierarchical touches disappeared. A few public schools abolished uniform altogether. Most later regretted it. Noteably, the two most distinctive uniforms (Eton and Christ's Hospital) were largely unchanged. One observer suggests that perhaps they were so eccentric it was difficult to know what on earth to change to.

Figure 4.--The stiff uncomfortable uniform has evolved into a more comfortable, casual outfit in recent years.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1294