ABSTRACT
Between 1947 and 1980 mainstream archival education programmes were established in three English, one Irish and two Welsh universities. The established programmes made little concession to specialist interests, since they mainly sought to prepare archivists for local authority record offices. Since the PRO did not employ a qualified archivist until 1979, preferring to maintain a scholarly tradition and to train its staff in-house, and given the relatively late development of business, university and specialist archives was reasonable. The chapter examines the modernisation of the university programmes in the 1980s and 1990s. It considers research and theoretical developments. The chapter establishes the state of professional education in England by 2003. Archival education in England in 2003 was still essentially nationally focused, as was the profession, although links with universities in Europe, North America, and Australia and in Africa through research, alumni and teaching promised a more global future.
