ABSTRACT
The enthusiastic middle-class adoption of music exams at all levels, from elementary to diploma stages, generated a veritable industry of musical assessment. This is illustrated by the rapid growth and huge success enjoyed by the exams offered by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and Trinity College. Music was only one of the many applied subjects offered by the Society in its broad portfolio of exams. Social historians have considerable cause to be grateful to the Society's interest in music. The Society's first music exam, called simply 'Music', was held in 1859 and the examiner was the well-known teacher, John Hullah. The ubiquitous presence of grades and diplomas in today's music education is now so firmly established that it has become very difficult to conceive of systematic music training without them. Music may have been the subject that most completely fulfilled the Society's high-minded aspirations for their exams to work to the betterment of wider society.
