ABSTRACT
If the initial spur for the Fleming Report came from fee-paying schools searching for public subsidies to come to their rescue in the face of falling numbers during the late 1930s, the Public Schools Commission arose from an entirely different situation. By the 1960s the fee-paying sector was not only under attack from financial problems but also from an increase in criticism of their role as schools working to retain and enhance the interests of the more privileged sections of society. When the Labour general election victory in 1964, albeit a narrow one, brought into government a party committed to the extension of comprehensive education, fee-paying schools seemed to be particularly exposed. Their’s was a twofold system of selection, in part academic, in part social due to the high fees demanded by the schools.
