ABSTRACT
A better trained workforce was seen as one key to maintaining Britain's manufacturing and commercial supremacy in the face of growing competition from Germany and the United States. Throughout most of the period of this study state schools provided the literacy and numeracy necessary for basic clerical work, thus enabling almost any young teenager to perform work in offices. But individual clerks believed that the voluntary acquisition of additional education might make one a more valuable commodity on the labour market as well as increase one's chances for bettering one's position. Office workers often earned salaries comparable to those of the highly skilled shipyard workers of Glasgow; their education and the perception of themselves as 'learned' were the only ways in which they could feel themselves distanced from the factory or shipyard. The needs of employers, whether for 'efficient wage slaves' or new managers are significant in a discussion of commercial education.
