ABSTRACT
In Paris, on 28 June 1919, in the Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Louis XIV, where the German Empire had been proclaimed by Bismarck in 1871 following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, a peace settlement with Germany was signed by the Entente at the Treaty of Versailles. The Lloyd George Coalition Government which was returned at the General Election of December 1918 with an overwhelming majority by an electorate swelled by the extension of the franchise to women, as well as men not previously eligible to vote, faced a difficult period. Some rural counties, when drawing up their schemes for educational provision, had other problems. Thus the East Sussex Education Committee whose area was almost entirely agricultural, residential and scattered but also bordered in parts by a sea-coast had to overcome the obstacle of an absence of suitable transport.
