Item RSP/7/k/25 - Photograph: School of Hairdressing

Photograph showing men and women students watching a tutor demonstrate the correct use of irons to a student, identified as Anne Holmes.

Labelled on reverse 'Central Office of Information Photograph. Crown Copyright reserved (See Feature Set Into No.210 The Working Man's University: The First Polytechnic. The demand for evening education in Britain far exceeds facilities. After a full day's work a large proportion of the adult population hurry to evening institutes and polytechnics to learn, at a very low cost, the 'know-how' that modern industry and commerce insists of its workers. More than 11,000 people in the evenings, and 2,500 during the day attend courses for further education at the regent Street Polytechnic, where the twelve departments and three craft courses are designed almost exclusively for the vocational student who has reached the age of seventeen (there is no maximum age) and has passed Matriculation or an equivalent University entrance examination.'

Separately labelled 'D.47593 (19) Students in the Hairdressing School gather round the instructor as he demonstrates to Anne Holmes the correct handling of irons in Marcel waving. Anne is seventeen and works in the hairdressing department of a big London hotel as an Improver. At the Polytechnic she will be able to take the City and Guilds Hairdressing examination.'