Congratulations to
those graduating this week and next! What a milestone in your lives! To
celebrate, I’m reposting something from 2010 and letting you know that Art and Artifice is currently on sale for 99 cents for a limited time. Find the links to purchase here.
This time of year marks graduation for many—from high
school, from trade school, from college.
Some will wear gowns in their school colors; others will wear somber
black. In the nineteenth century,
students attending school at Christ’s Hospital wore blue.
The London Bluecoat School, as it was called, opened for
both boys and girls in 1552. It was
designed to educate and house London’s poor children, but students came from
all England and Wales, and a few came from Ireland and Scotland. An average of 1,500 students were enrolled
each year. It must have been a frugal
operation: in 1815, it cost about 22
pounds per year per child to house, feed, clothe, and educate the students.
So let’s say you’re a child of a poor family, and your
mother would like to see you have a chance to do something better in life by
attending the Bluecoat School. First,
she had to petition a member of the board of governors (who were generally
officials with the City of London) or some wealthy person with influence at the
school (a benefactor) for help. She had
to gather birth and baptismal records, a sworn statement from your parish
minister, and statements from witnesses that proved you were the right age and
in a “destitute condition.” The board
member or benefactor brought the proof to the board, who reviewed and approved
these presentation papers, at which point your family was notified.
On a set day, Mother brought you down to the school and
turned you over to the registrar. I
imagine there must have been some teary-eyed farewells at that point. Much as if you were entering prison, the registrar
recorded your name in a book and gave you a new set of clothes that consisted
of a long blue coat close to the body, a yellow underskirt, yellow stockings,
and a flat, round worsted cap. That’s
what you wore the remainder of your time in the school, up to age sixteen.
At first, boys and girls were educated in the same school,
but just before the beginning of the nineteenth century, the girls were moved
out of London to Hertfordshire, and some of the youngest boys (under age 10)
joined them shortly afterward. It
appears the girls were taught to go into service or trade, but the boys in
London were educated in the classics, including learning Latin. The buildings also housed the Royal
Mathematical School to train mathematicians and teach naval officers navigation. Sir Isaac Newton, John Flamsteed the first
Astronomer Royal, and Edmund Halley (who first computed the orbit of Halley’s
comet) helped build the study materials.
The Bluecoat School was much patronized by the aristocracy
and nobility. It operated under Royal
Charter, and noted architects Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor (I so
want to steal his name for a hero!), designed the buildings after many of the
originals were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The wealthy even left money to the school in
their wills. Famous students in London
include critic and writer James Leigh Hunt, essayist Charles Lamb, and the poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bluecoat
schools eventually sprung up in a number of other English cities as well.
So, if you are graduating or have graduated,
congratulations! Aren’t you glad you
didn’t have to do it in a blue coat and yellow stockings?
