The Eton Collar

An Edwardian pupil of Colfe's School, London, shakes hands with his Edwardian counterpart in a picture which clearly reveals the puritan origins of the Eton collar. The disconcerted schoolboy in the Boys' Own Paper cartoon entitled His first collar and cuffs - how they felt to Tommy would certainly have agreed that the stiffly starched Eton collar was not conducive to freedom!

A writer on the Edwardian period comments: 'This was the heyday of the Eton collar. Boys' mothers considered that if they wore stiff white collars they were properly dressed. The Eton collar, visually as well as morally, was a direct survival of the puritan streak in the English character. When it was worn out and too tight - and for most boys it invariably acquired both these characteristics with the passage of time - the Eton collar felt to the wearer like a close-fitting hacksaw blade. If we ever start dressing boys in Eton collars again we shall know that another puritan age is on its way.' Gordon Winter, The Golden Years.

The Eton collar was of course an essential component of the Eton suit, but was also worn with a variety of other garments, including norfolk suits, highland dress and reefer jackets - as pictured above. This was Dorian William's school dress of the 1920s and he recalled in his memoirs: 'The quarter of an hour that followed games was the worst part of the day, especially in the winter. With frozen fingers one somehow had to do up one's starched Eton collar and tie one's tie.'

The actor Raymond Massey, who was educated in Canada, would no doubt have agreed: 'We had to wear the Eton collar all the time, except on the playing field. Designed by some sadist to be a constant irritation it had a narrow neckband that came adrift of the backstud immediately on tightening the tie. Then the collar would ride up at the back and sides, suggesting a garrotting. After the school laundry had done its worst, it would have a serrated edge like a crosscut saw.'

This group of Cranleigh Schoolboys from 1928 shows that some are dressed in Eton collars whilst others have graduated to the more bearable adult variety. The official school history tells us that 'The new Cranleigh boy wore his bowler hat for travelling to school, and a neck-chafing Eton collar with a serge suit.'

Although no longer part of standard school uniforms, the Eton collar lives on in its role as a 'choir collar' in Westminster Cathedral and other institutions where its undoubted smartness is still an asset. Although it has to be admitted that the choristers sometimes look a little uncomfortable in their broad starched collars, they must be commended for keeping alive an English tradition in juvenile dress.

Westminster Cathedral choristers still wear full-sized Eton collars