The Hasmonean  Grammar School for Boys is an Orthodox Jewish School in London, which was established in 1944 by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld z”tl. In reminiscences by former pupils, Itzy Sabo wrote, “Hasmonean was started by Yekkes. In the German Jewish tradition, the ‘capple’ was used exclusively in religious contexts, e.g. praying. In the early years of Hasmo, the school rules required pupils to wear it during religious studies lessons, and forbade wearing it in secular contexts. Only pupils (typically of eastern European extraction) who brought a note from home saying it was their custom could wear one all the time.”  (see: http://melchettmike.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/hasmo-legends-xvi-1959-school-photograph/)

With today’s multi-styles of clothes worn throughout almost the whole world, especially by different ethnic groups, the wearing of a yarmulka in public is nothing unusual. However as we can see from a teshuvah of Rav David Zvi Hoffman (Melamed L’hoil, Yoreh Deah, responsum 56) that this was not always the case. Rav Hoffman reports how one day he went to visit Rav Shimshon Refoel Hirsch. Rav Hirsch’s Yeshivah had a department teaching secular subjects and whose lecturers were non-Jews. Rav Hirsch told him to remove his head covering since not being bareheaded would offend the non-Jewish lecturers.