ABSTRACT
In the inter-war years the university population of Great Britain stood at around 40,000 in the early and mid 1920s, then rose steadily from 1926 to 1932 to around 50,000 where it remained fairly constantly throughout the 1930s. Post-war boom gave way to severe slump in 1920, followed in turn by a modest recovery in the later 1920s. From the industrial side the areas and rates of absorption of graduates by firms and salary levels will be considered, and finally the reaction of university opinion against this increasing involvement of the universities and industry in the inter-war years. While technical change was scarcely new, organized research became one of the leading sources of invention in the inter-war years and this by its very nature required graduate labour. There was no doubt of the importance of industrial backing for the extension of Cambridge science in the inter-war years.
