Technical Instruction Committees in South Wales, United Kingdom, 1889-1903 (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a two-part article on the establishment and activities of the Technical Instruction Committees established in Glamorgan County, Cardiff and Swansea in 1889/91. Local Technical Instruction Committees were given responsibility for given geographical areas, and were the first radical attempt to organise and finance a systematic programme of technical education. Each Committee inherited a haphazard system of evening classes sponsored initially by individual mechanics' institutes and later by the Department of Science and Art. This system, such as it was, exhibited little pattern, varying in extent from place to place. Provision was dependent on local initiatives and utilised a variety of local buildings. Part 1 of this article describes the wider context of the establishment and activities of the Technical Instruction Committees before concentrating on the activities specifically of the Committee in Glamorgan County. Part 2 of this article (to appear in Volume 45, Number 2, 1993) will deal with the activities of the Technical Instruction Committees in Cardiff and Swansea before providing a concluding overview of the two parts.