1. Michael Argles, South Kensington to Robbins: An Account of English Technical and Scientific Education since 1851 (London: Longmans, 1964), 54.

2. A. Briggs, Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes 1851–67 (London: Penguin, 1965), 22.

3. S. G. Checkland, The Rise of Industrial Society in England 1815–1885 (London: Longmans, 1966), 26.

4. G. Best, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–75 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971), 21.

5. Argles, 14; and G. W. Roderick and M. D. Stephens, Education and Industry in the Nineteenth Century (London: Longmans, 1978), 4.

6. They used the evidence from a series of international exhibitions held during the period to promote their cause.

7. Argles, 136.

8. A. Abbott, Education for Industry and Commerce in England (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 180.

9. Ibid.

10. J. W. Adamson, English Education 1789 to 1902 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 391.

11. D. S. L. Cardwell, The Organisation of Science in England (London: Heinemann, 1972), 175.

12. A. Green, Education and State Formation: The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA (London: The Macmillan Press, 1990), 299.

13. Abbott, 180.

14. Ibid.

15. R. Betts, “Persistent but Misguided? The Technical Educationists 1867–89,” History of Education 27, no. 3 (1998): 267–277.

16. Ibid.

17. Briggs, 3.

18. Sir Henry Cole (1808–1882), who had been an official at Christ’s Hospital and a subcommissioner of the Record Commission, was appointed as the assistant keeper of the Public Record Office in 1838. He served on the organizing committee of the 1851 Great Exhibition and in the same role at subsequent events in 1862 and 1871. He was made joint secretary of the Science and Art Department in 1853 and held the post by himself from 1858 to 1873. He also represented Britain as a commissioner at the 1855 and 1867 Paris Exhibitions.