ABSTRACT
Harold Wilson's well remembered remarks about 'the white heat of the technological revolution' served as a rallying call to those who believed that engineering should be both more prestigious and better catered for by the universities. For much of the nineteenth century England had enjoyed a buoyant manufacturing society, flowering in the Victorian period and based on a pre-eminence in design, quality and the ability to produce world-leading capital goods. The Science Research Council, under the stimulus of its then chairman, Sir Brian Flowers, established an Engineering Board which in due course developed a wide range of schemes to sponsor research which was thought to be of specific national importance. Successive economic recessions coupled with the more liberal provision of education at graduate level by the State, resulted in educational budgets in the firms being cut, in many cases virtually to zero, and many of the routes by which employees had hitherto gained their relevant education became impassable.
