MCC , Middlesex County Council x Middlesex County Council

Before 1870 schools were run as private concerns including small private schools and dame schools, the endowed grammar schools, and the beginning of the development of the Public Schools, and for the very poor there existed schools run by religious organisations.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 marked a watershed in the history of English education. It was based on the principle of elementary education for all. It aimed 'to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send the children to the schools', and principally to provide instruction in basic literacy and numeracy until the age of 12. The Act provided for the division of England and Wales into school districts. Wherever surveys showed that existing voluntary Schools could not provide enough places for all the school age children within their districts, the ratepayers elected school Boards, which were required to supplement the existing schools with (what became known as) Board Schools. Funds to build and maintain were to come from fees, government grants and the rates. This was the starting point of local responsibility for education expenditure, and of the partnership of central and local authorities.

The Act was not received with unbounded enthusiasm anywhere in the country and Middlesex was no exception. Many areas were reluctant to set up school boards and only did so after repeated prompting from the Education Department of the Privy Council. In many areas problems arose over the co-existence of Board Schools and denomination schools, and the building of new schools was at times regarded as extravagant and seen as robbing the ratepayer. Indeed, in order to avoid the expenditure associated with them, Ealing did not set up a School Board, establishing instead the Ealing Education Association in 1877 to promote voluntary subscriptions to help maintain existing schools. Nevertheless the Act made it possible for children who would previously never have had the opportunity, to receive some basic instruction. By 1903 the School Boards in Middlesex had completed 31 new elementary schools, with 3 more in the process of building.

School Board Districts in Middlesex: Acton; Ashford; Boston Road (formerly Hanwell National School); Brentford; Edgware; Edmonton; Enfield; Feltham, Hanworth and Bedfont; Finchley; Friern Barnet and South Mimms; Hanwell; Hampton Wick; Harmondsworth; Harefield; Harrow United School Board; Hornsey; Kingsbury; Norwood; Southall; Southgate; Staines; Tottenham; Uxbridge; Willesden and Wood Green.

School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. They were given charge of all elementary and much secondary education throughout the country.