The part played by civil servants in promoting girls' secondary education 1869-1902: some aspects of the administration of the Endowed Schools Acts

The attempts made under the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 to reorganise the grammar schools of England and Wales along lines suggested by the Taunton Commission have attracted comparatively little notice. Yet they represent not only a serious endeavour, many years before 1902, to construct the basis of a secondary school system, but a very important government lead in the ratter of girls1 education. The Commissioners appointed to administer the Act were strongly committed to the principles behind it and vigorously wielded their considerable powers, including those under Section 12 which required provision to be made for girls out of endowments wherever possible. Though the application of Section 12 was often hindered by shortage of money, competing claims and local reluctance to diminish the resources available to boys, in total more than a quarter of the schools launched by the Endowed Schools Commissioners were girls' schools. In 1874 the Endowed Schools Commission, which had been a child of the Liberal government, was disbanded by the Conservatives and its powers transferred to the Charity Commission which exercised them until 1903. This transfer to a body of administrators with a narrower, quasi-judicial tradition and no particular commitment to the girls' cause, was deplored at the time by the women's movement; as it proved, rightly, for the Charity Commissioners did less well with Section 12 and their entire provision of girls' schools was only 15% of their total. There are certainly signs, towards the end of the century, that initiative in this particular sphere, as in secondary education generally, was already passing to the County Councils? In fact, the problem of providing for girls revealed in an acute form the wider problem of trying to base a secondary school system on endowments.