ABSTRACT
Parents who decided to send their sons to Ellesmere College chose this school from a changing market of schools, resembling a social and educational hierarchy, with the 'great schools' like Shrewsbury School at the top and village all-age elementary schools at the bottom. One of the most significant developments which affected education and careers of young men from the Great War onwards was the slowly strengthening linkage between educational qualifications and careers. For most of the period between 1929 and 1950 the provision of free education by the state was limited to elementary schooling up to the age of 14, which did not provide access to the kinds of careers sought by these parents and as they could afford it they sent their sons elsewhere. Apart from unusual circumstances of the war and immediate post-war period, the reasons why parents sent their sons to Ellesmere rather than keeping them at home at a local grammar school are intriguing.
