Of Gowns and Morterboards

Dr. Keat's excellent new series got me wondering...

Here in the USA, academic regalia has long been reserved almost exclusively for graduation and other academic ceremonies. With very few exceptions, routine daily wear of cap and gown has been obsolete here for at least the last 100 years.

Some stories I read in the LSF lead me to believe that's not the case in the UK. Are there any schools there where faculty still wear gown and morterboard?

If not, in what era and at what levels of school might it be correct to depict a school head and/or teacher in gown & morterboard?

What is the practice in other countries?

To answer your question Guy, I left school in Scotland in 1970 and all the teachers, male and female wore gowns, but not morterboards. If my memory serves me well I do not remember any of the female teachers looking remotely sexy even though I was a spanko back then and my teenage hormones were raging.
Quite a few of the teachers kept their tawse draped over their shoulder for easy access and hidden by the gown.

I retired from teaching 4 years ago, and at that time, no teacher wore a gown as everyday wear. The Senior Management Team, however, wore gowns for special ceremonies such as prize-giving. I do not recall having seen a mortar-board since my own schooldays in the 1960s.

Dund93, I think teachers were only entitled to wear gowns if they had achieved an MA (which most of them had). Some of the younger teachers chose not to wear gowns, especially the 'cool' teachers. Maybe other young teachers wore them to give themselves an air of the authority they lacked...

My kids graduated from college over the past few year and all the profs and assistant profs, plus all the deans etc wore gowns, many decorated with different colors of sashes to show which degrees they held etc. I have seen other universities grads in Canada on the news and all the staff wore the gowns, cannot remember them wearing the caps.

this only happens at formal events, never during the regular day routine.

I left school in England in 1976, and no teacher ever wore a gown or mortarboard. However, one of the old timer teachers did say that they were useful for keeping spare bits of chalk and bags of sweets etc. in apart from the very real value of keeping their ordinary clothes clean like a workman's overall.

When I went to technical college after leaving school, all the lecturers wore white lab coats for pretty much the same reasons.

At my grammar school in the late fifties to mid sixties all the masters wore a gown to morning assembly.
Most wore them in lessons , probably to protect clothing from chalk dust. Remember in those days washing was still a whole day chore and dry-cleaning was very expensive.
On founder's day and other special occasions they wore full regalia, including ermine and mortar boards or even fancier hats if they had a masters or doctorate.
Our first headmaster used to hold form orders every half term, and he and your form master would take their place on the stage and you would form up in order of merit.
Exceptional performances including sport would be praised and at the end any miscreants would follow him to his study for a whacking!
Our next headmaster would hook his fingers in his gown, and tuck them under his waistcoat nad proselytise-which caused great amusement. One of my friends was at a university a few years later after he had returned to the north and heard some schoolboys on the bus putting their thumbs in their lapels and mimicking " Tha caan't have it bo(r)th ways laddie" he knew immediately who it was!

I've lived in the USA all my life, and so only wore the cap and gown on 3 occasions. When I graduated from high school, when I graduated from college, and when I got my masters degree. None of my teachers ever wore the cap and gown, except for graduation exercises. I do remember when I got my masters, part of the ceremony was for one of the teachers to place a hood around our neck. This hood had a design unique to the school granting my masters degree. If I had wanted to keep it, I would have had to pay an extra $75.00, so I gave it back after the ceremony. I suppose I could still go back and buy one, but I received my masters 32 years ago, so I'm sure the cost would be at least double (probably triple) now.

That matches my experience, except you left out graduation from junior college, which is a fourth occasion for some. I skipped the middle two occasions because they didn't seem important at the time and just attended my High School ceremony and my Master's graduation, which was some 35 years later! Both times, I made do with a cheap disposable gown.

At my school in the forties and fifties the masters all wore their gowns when teaching and during morning assemblies. Come Sunday, attendance at services in Chapel was compulsory for the masters as well as boys, and they wore their coloured hoods (over their shoulders) as well.

The only time I ever saw a mortar board was when the headmaster wore his on speech day. I'm sure the other masters had them but they never wore them.

By the time my two girls went to school, gowns were a thing of the past although their headmaster wore his for the Christmas Carol Service.