The Later Nineteenth Century

The energies of working-class radicals were largely diverted into trade union activity, and a surge of anti-aristocratic feeling and hostility to the current political system resulting from the early military failures of the Crimean War of 1854–56 spent itself before the end of the decade. The developing political mood in favour of a broader franchise was recognised by the Conservatives during their brief period in office in 1858–59. The Education Act 1870 broke new ground by creating the first state-funded and state-run elementary schools. The voluntary bodies received government grants from 1833 and state influence gradually extended over the intervening period, first by linking levels of grant to school attendance, and then from the 1860s by ‘payment by results’, whereby payment of a portion of the grant was conditional on a set proportion of pupils reaching the prescribed standards in tests carried out annually by inspectors appointed by the Privy Council Committee on Education.