Catalogue description Records of the Inspectorate

In 1839, the right of inspection of schools was made a condition of grant aid and two inspectors of elementary schools were appointed in that year. The churches were given a voice in the selection of inspectors in 1840 and until 1876 the inspectors were organised not by districts but by religious denomination, with inspectors for Church of England, non-conformist and Roman Catholic schools. In 1876 an area organisation was instituted and continued as the Elementary Division of the Inspectorate under the Board of Education.

Standards of institutions aided by the Science and Art Department and of secondary schools by the Charity Commissioners were largely tested by public examinations set both by the grant aiding and various other independent bodies. After 1902 the principles of inspection applied to elementary schools were extended to other levels of education. The Inspectorate was divided into five main divisions: elementary, secondary, technical, teacher training and art, with additional branches of women inspectors (first appointed in 1883) and, from 1907, a Welsh branch for certain aspects of Welsh education covered by the Welsh Department of the Board.

Both the aims and the methods of inspection have varied from time to time, largely as a result of different methods of assessing grants and of changing attitudes towards educational policy and methods. The Education Acts 1902 and 1918, by laying responsibility for the efficient maintenance of education on local education authorities, increased the side of the Inspectorate's work concerned with educational improvement by means of advice and constructive criticism. The Inspectorate acted as an intermediary between the board and the local education authorities and was given wide advisory responsibility for the schemes encouraged by this legislation. The Inspectorate was also largely responsible for schemes for teachers' short courses. Educational aspects of institutions under the control of government departments, such as the industrial, reformatory and borstal schools of the Home Office and poor law schools for which the Local Government Board and the Ministry of Health were successively responsible, were inspected by the Board. The advisory services of the Inspectorate were used by other departments such as the Colonial Office, the War Office and the Air Ministry.

The Inspectorate was wound up in 1992 by the Education (Schools) Act and some of its functions were taken over by the newly established Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).