The expansion of higher education in England

Abstract

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a phenomenal and unprecedented growth in the provision of higher education in England. At the commencement of the period, in mid-century, there were but four small university institutions and a number of provincial Colleges of varying prestige and clientele. For the vast bulk of the population education beyond elementary school had to be sought through Mechanic's Institutes or Adult Schools. Within eighty years this Situation had been completely transformed through a process of growth and systematization. By 1930 the different elements in what could be discerned as a system stood in a clear relationship one to another, and identified themselves with particular social groups. Similarities with higher education in other major industrial societies were now more manifest: admission qualifications and ages were, by 1930, largely standardized; specialist faculties, each linking with professional occupations, had been established, and, more importantly, a definite hierarchy of educational institutions was discernible. How did this process occur in England between 1860 and 1930?