Monday, April 12, 2010

Eton School boys


6 comments:

  1. Are you sure that these are Etonians? The younger one looks much younger than 12/13. I wonder if it is a prep school photograph - there would have been any number which had a similar uniform with a flat Eton collar. Also the shape of the collar (pointed) looks more like a Harrovian collar.

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  2. I am very ambivalent about top quality schooling for Victorian boys.

    On one hand, they looked very smart, were well educated and behaved like gentlemen (well, not always).

    On the other hand, they were taken away from their families at an obscenely early age to board. My heart breaks for these babies.

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  3. Alice,

    it's definately labelled Eton and looks very similar to what I have seen, but you seem to know much more than me.

    Hels,

    upper class children still do the same here - We are a nation that love pets and children - but in small well-behaved doses.

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  4. No, they are not Etonians! Although they might have been later. These are boys of prep school age and wearing boaters; Eton boys wore toppers. Any idea of the precise date of the photograph

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  5. Annoying this as you'd think they'd be loads on their headwear. I found this pic from 1880

    http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Course/Boarding/Eton4.jpg

    definately no boaters I can find.

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  6. aren't the straw boater hats HARROW...?

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