This placed the provision of elementary education under local government control and created local education authorities (LEAs).
It put education in the hands of county councils and county borough councils, which had been established by the Local Government Act 1888.
The Act also abolished school boards. Therefore the majority of former board schools, along with most British and other Nonconformist voluntary schools, became provided schools under LEA control.
LEAs gave maintenance grants to schools. However non-provided denominational schools, which were defined by the Act as church schools not funded by the rates, usually paid for the provision of their own buildings.
Norwich City Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council lost their education responsibilities following local government reorganisation in 1974. These were transferred to Norfolk County Council (NCC).
In the case of King’s Lynn, education responsibilities appear to have been transferred to a district divisional executive committee under NCC in the mid-1940s. Thetford had already transferred to county council control by 1913.
The main records of the county and municipal borough education committees are their minutes, which give details of the administration of the committee, its membership and duties.
These include the building, maintenance and financial administration of schools, supervision of school attendance, the making of by-laws and staff recruitment.
The HMI (His or Her Majesty’s Inspector) usually reported to the committee and the minutes sometimes include inspectors’ recommendations.
The education department became part of NCC’s Children’s Services in 2005. Some committee minutes for the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Panel, from January 2009 to May 2014, are available through NCC’s website.
Records of the county and borough council education departments and their committees also include correspondence, reports and, very occasionally, registers of some staff and pupils.
For catalogues of these documents, please refer to records of the relevant education department:
Following The Education Act 1944, LEAs had to create development plans for primary and secondary education.
There is a printed copy of the Norfolk Education Committee’s Development Plan for Primary and Secondary Education, c1947, which includes King’s Lynn and Thetford, available on the searchroom shelves.