ABSTRACT
There is always a problem with the use of the name public school. It is utterly confusing to those foreign to schooling in Britain who find it difficult to grasp that the schools are not open to the public. The description British private schools or fee-paying school may well be more accurate today but not so suitable when dealing with the pre-1944 period. Fees were paid in elementary schools until 1891; indeed in some until 1918. They were paid for county secondary schools until 1944, the number of fee-payers in these schools slowly declining during the interwar years. For that reason the term public school is preferred here because it was in use for most of the period under discussion and for the major enquiries into these schools during both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
