Catalogue description Education Department and successors: Universities and University Colleges, Files

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Details of ED 119
Reference: ED 119
Title: Education Department and successors: Universities and University Colleges, Files
Description:

Correspondence and papers preserved in the University Branch dealing with matters affecting university charters and statutes referred to the Education Department by the Privy Council in cases involving endowments and educational foundations.

The files also contain material relating to the distribution of government grants to universities and university colleges prior to the establishment of the University Grants Committee in 1919.

Following the issue in 1944 of the McNair Report on the training of teachers and youth leaders, these records contain, inter alia, proposals on the formation of Area Training Organisations.
Date: 1874-1967
Related material:

See also Records of the Legal Branch Division within ED
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: RU file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 118 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure
Administrative / biographical background:

Parliamentary Grant was made available to University Colleges in Great Britain in 1889 in order 'to strengthen the position of selected poorer colleges and to stimulate local munificence'. The money was distributed by the Treasury but in 1911 this duty was transferred to the Board of Education and undertaken by the Universities Branch which had been created in 1909 to supervise grants made by the board's Elementary, Secondary, and Technical Branches to universities and university colleges.

The Board of Education appointed a standing advisory committee to make recommendation for the distribution of Exchequer and other Government grants e.g. for teacher training, for university education in England and Wales.

By 1919 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had appointed the University Grants Committee 'to enquire into the financial needs of University Education in Great Britain and advise the Government as to the application of grants made by Parliament towards meeting them', and the Board of Education ceased to have responsibility for distribution of Parliamentary grants.

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