ABSTRACT
The rapid growth of educational provision in the period of the school boards, particularly in expanding urban areas such as London, brought in its train an abundant demand for teachers, and also for local school managers, required at the base of an increasingly bureaucratized system of organization. The Headmaster of Fleet Road School, W.B.Adams, regularly stressed the importance to the school of the quality of its teachers and the support of its managers. In the latter case, he was thinking above all of the Rt. Hon. Lyulph Stanley, one of the leading figures on the London School Board and the most prominent and influential member of the local group of managers. Unfortunately, most assistant teachers and managers shared in common the fact that they were low down in the chain of command, and records of their individual achievements and opinions are hard to come by. In the case of Fleet Road School, for example, there is precious little evidence of the feelings of the teachers, as distinct from the headteacher, towards the managers, and vice versa. The tensions between the local managers, though not specifically the Fleet Road group of managers, and the London School Board, gained a more public airing. Like the teachers, the managers were very sensitive about status.
