ABSTRACT
The emergence of the Royal Colleges (and particularly the two older ones) as policy-making bodies within the National Health Service obscured but in no way replaced their primary role as educational institutions. Indeed, the war had come at a critical stage in postgraduate educational development, for it interrupted the process of fragmentation of specialties into new pro fessional groups, each with its own status and its own control over specialty standards. The specialist caste system did not only affect the role of the gen eral practitioner; it also had a profound impact on the traditionally generalist cultures of the older Royal Colleges. The Colleges, assailed by the de mands of growing specialty groups, had to come to some decision on their future organization both as educational and as representative bodies in the NHS structure.
