ABSTRACT
Scientific education for occupations within industry was for a long time lacking in England and the only technical education of a more extensive character during the early half of the nineteenth century was the kind offered at the Mechanics’ Institutes, a large number of training centres founded during the 1820s. The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was to some extent the starting-point for scientific education in England, as well as a point of departure in the modern history of English manufactures and arts. The Exhibition thus taught English producers ‘the useful lesson that England possessed no monopoly of inventive genius or practical skill’, along with the fact that foreign producers had advanced further in aspects of industry which required scientific application. The Great Depression and a greater awareness of a growing international competition induced changes in the English educational system.
