British Attitudes to Engineering Education: a Historical Perspective

Abstract

There is ample evidence of the growing inferiority in numbers and education of British engineers from the middle of the nineteenth century and that the major reason for this has been a lack of demand by British industry for highly qualified staff. What would now be called professional engineers were, until recently, mostly ill-educated and received their training largely by apprenticeship. The only qualification available to the great majority was membership of one of the engineering institutions, in contrast to the degrees or diplomas given after full-time education to Continental European or American engineers. No examination was required for membership until that introduced by the Civils in 1896; a step which was not taken by the Mechanicals and Electricals until 1913. At the end of the nineteenth century it was estimated that Germany had about 30,000 academically trained engineers, with from three to five times as many from the lower-level engineering schools: a total of at least 150,000 (Ludwig, 1974). This was more than the members enrolled on the Technical and Scientific Register of the Ministry of Labour in this country during the Second World War (Board of Education, 1944).

In preparing this chapter I was greatly helped by the librarians or archivists of a number of organisations, particularly Mr R. T. Everett, lately Chief Librarian of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I am also grateful to the Federation des Associations et Sociétés Françaises d’Ingenieurs Diplômés, the Comité d’Etudes sur les Formations d’Ingenieurs, the Statistischesamt of the F R Germany, Ing. I. Hillmer of the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, Dr Geer of Gesamtmetall, and the Engineering Manpower Commission of the United States Engineering Joint Council.