ABSTRACT
The appointment in 1910 of a departmental committee to investigate the cost of school buildings was entirely in keeping with this tradition, and became the first of a series of initiatives which during the following thirty years pushed architects towards lighter, cheaper and less durable schools. The Board’s circular promised full co-operation in the encouragement of new school buildings or the improvement of old, especially ‘in areas where an exceptional amount of unemployment is anticipated’. It is clear that, as early as 1914, a policy of using public works to stimulate the economy was accepted and ready for implementation. The Board of Education may well have been an important pioneer in both respects, a view which has been canvassed, although not developed, by Ursula Hicks, writing on the development of public finance. Several eminent directors of education attended, among them Spurley Hey of Manchester, together with a number of local-authority architects.
