ABSTRACT
The end of the First World War and the establishment of mass democracy after 1918 raised concerns amongst Britain's ruling classes about the need to educate the newly enfranchised electorate in their rights and responsibilities as citizens. The 1918 Education Act and successive education reports on primary education and teaching methods identified museums as institutions that could make a useful contribution to schooling and social enlightenment. The British Institute of Adult Education (BIAE) was established to coordinate these different providers and develop opportunities for informal education for the masses. The Museums Association (MA) debated these proposals at its annual conference that year but agreed that: they did not think that transfer to Education Committees would be in the best interest of museums, since they were not fundamentally educational institutions. Despite rejecting the 1919 education proposals, in 1922, the MA called for a Royal Commission to be set up to investigate the provincial museum sector.
