The Rich Kids vs. the Poor Kids in Britain 1937
“Toffs and Toughs” by Jimmy Sime is a 1937 photograph of five English boys: two dressed in the Harrow School uniform including waistcoat, top hat, boutonnière, and cane; and three nearby wearing the plainclothes of early 20th-century working-class youths. The photograph was taken in July 1937 outside the Grace Gates at Lord’s Cricket Ground during the Eton v Harrow cricket match. The image struck a chord with the public at the time by capturing the stark inequalities of the British class system in early 20th century Britain. 14-year-old Peter Wagner and 15-year-old Thomas Norwood Armitage “Tim” Dyson were the two “toffs” in question, dressed in their Harrow uniforms of waistcoat, top hat, boutonnière, and cane. The “toughs” were 13-year-old boys George Salmon, Jack Catlin, and George Young, who were skipping school at the local Church of England primary to collect tips at Lords.
But it turns out this wasn’t such a candid moment. It turns out the photo was at least partially posed, although the full extent to which it was manipulated is unknown. At one point he did tell the “toughs” to come closer to the “toffs” so Sime could get his photo. The British journalist Ian Jack has speculated that Sime solicited the cooperation of the three “toughs”, but not that of the two “toffs”. Sime took several shots of the five boys outside Grace Gates, with a different photograph from the same reel appearing in Life Magazine in August of the same year. Regardless of this, it became an iconic photograph and one journalist noted: “As a way of summarising England’s complicated cross-currents of money and manners, it was remarkably binary; as simple a division of English society as that between Lord Snooty and his enemies…”