ABSTRACT
Introduction The rise of a central authority for English education had been a slow, tortuous, makeshift, muddled, unplanned, disjointed and ignoble process.1
So A.S. Bishop concluded his study of central government of education in England in the nineteenth century. This article begins where Bishop ended, with the creation of the Board of Education in 1900. It concludes with an analysis of the current situation, with particular reference to the formation of the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) in 1995. Bishop's study was substantial. Four of its 14 chapters were devoted to the Education Department, three to the Science and Art Department and three to the Charity Commission. In a piece of this length it is impossible to provide more than a survey of key issues. Later this year a more detailed examination of twentieth-century developments, with particular reference to the relationship between the central departments for Education and Employment, will appear in book form.2
