Eton Jacket
The classic dress of the late Victorian or Edwardian schoolboy, Eton’s were very short jackets, usually worn with a stiff and notoriously uncomfortable starched collar and cuffs. Originally introduced for the younger boys at Eton College (designated rather brutally as any boy under 5′4″ tall), the style spread to become the commonest uniform for juniors in the public schools of the period, as well as ‘Sunday best’ for many boys in private life.
Under the peculiar British system a public
school is of course one of the more exclusive, fee paying schools, and thus precisely the sort of school that the general public never attends.
This makes sense if you’re British.
Illustration
A nineteenth century schoolboy wearing a short black Eton jacket over a black waistcoat and lighter coloured trousers. Also of interest are the wide Eton collar and mortar board.
The Telegram
The telegram I have used as a background picture for the one Will received in ‘Wild Demonic Fauna’ is a scan of a genuine Victorian telegram (yes, I am mad), except that I did have to doctor the name of the receiving office, the post mark, and the times it was sent and received. I also slightly lightened the colour since the original has presumably yellowed since 1896, and being kind I shrank it for the convenience of those with small screens. The original is approximately 8½″ by 5½″, and is written out in pencil by hand. It is interesting to note that both capitalisation and the punctuation were given correctly, so for example the ‘stops’ are just dots, not spelt out as they would have been at a later date.
In the spirit of doing things properly, I checked there were indeed telegraph offices at Kings Cross Station and Kensington Young Street, and that they would have been open at that time of the morning. The telegram as it stands in WDF could never have been delivered since it doesn’t include an address – but I had to call a line somewhere. As a standard twenty word telegram it would have cost the sender 1/- in 1883. Mine cost me £4 and a long conversation about stamp albums with the vendor. I thought it was worth it.
Incidentally, the HTML for this has been very difficult for me to write, so I apologise if I have made a mess of it for anyone – do please let me know if I have.