🎓 Leaving age 14
The school leaving age was raised from 12 to 14. At first some children could still leave early if work was found. These exceptions were ended in 1921.
The Fight for Recognition, 1914-1928 » The Education Act 1918 and the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B8, Key topic 1
- What the Education Act 1918 changed for children, especially working-class children
- What the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 did to the rights and jobs of foreign nationals
- Why both laws were significant, and their limits
- How Britain in 1928 compared with Britain in 1914, and how to answer an "Explain two ways" question
Rights and equality are not only about the vote. Two laws from 1918 and 1919 shaped the lives of very different groups: working-class children, and people from other countries living in Britain. One gave more people a longer education. The other limited rights. Both tell us what the government thought about class and race at the end of the First World War.
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Unlock This CourseThe Education Act 1918
Before 1918 many working-class children left school at 12, and some left even earlier to work part-time. Their families often needed the wages. Few of these children ever reached a secondary school, because secondary schools charged fees.
Key terms:
- School leaving age: the age at which children are allowed to stop going to school.
- Continuation school: a part-time school that young people in work would attend for a few hours each week.
- Alien: the legal word used at the time for a foreign national living in Britain.
- Deport: to force a person to leave the country.
The Act was named after H. A. L. Fisher, the President of the Board of Education, who wanted to improve education after the war. It applied to England and Wales. It did these main things:
💰 No fees
All fees were abolished in state elementary schools, so a poor family could not be charged for a child's place.
🏥 Extra care
Local authorities were encouraged to widen medical inspection of pupils and to provide nursery schools and help for children with special needs.
The Act also planned continuation classes for young workers aged 14 to 18. This idea mostly failed. Few were set up, and in the early 1920s the government cut spending and dropped the plan.
Why was the Act significant?
Class: it gave working-class children two more years of schooling and ended the habit of sending young children out to work. Limits: most children still left school at 14 and went straight into work, and secondary education was still mostly for those who could pay. Bigger change for the working classes had to wait for the later Act described in the lesson Butler's Education Act and the Start of the NHS.
The Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919
When the war began in August 1914, Parliament passed the Aliens Restriction Act. It let the government control the entry of foreign nationals and made them register with the police. After the war, ministers did not want to end these powers. Anti-German feeling was strong, and many people wanted jobs kept for soldiers coming home. In December 1919 Parliament passed the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, which kept control going in peacetime.
🚧 Deportation
Every former enemy alien living in Britain (for example, Germans) was to be deported unless they applied within two months for a licence to stay.
⚓ Jobs at sea
No alien could be master, chief officer or chief engineer of a British merchant ship. Aliens on British ships could not be paid less than the standard rate.
The Act also kept foreign nationals out of the civil service. So it limited both their rights (they could be sent away) and their jobs (some careers were closed).
Why was the Act significant?
It kept suspicion of foreigners in the law in peacetime, and it came in the same year as the race riots described in the lesson The First World War: Ethnic Minorities and Disabled People. The government was treating foreign nationals as a problem, not protecting them. Limits: it said nothing about attacks on minorities, and it did not ban discrimination by employers. Britain had no law against racial discrimination at this time.
Comparing 1914 with 1928
Put this lesson together with the others in this topic and you can see what changed and what stayed the same.
👩 Gender
1914: no woman could vote in a general election. 1928: all women aged 21 and over could vote on the same terms as men, and professions were open to them. But the marriage bar and unequal pay stayed.
👷 Class
1914: many children left school at 12 and wages mattered more than lessons. 1928: all had to stay until 14, with no fees in elementary schools. But secondary schooling was still out of reach for most.
🌎 Race
1914: attacks such as those on Chinese laundries in Cardiff in 1911 and no law against discrimination. 1928: riots in 1919, tighter controls on foreign nationals, and still no law against discrimination. Little progress.
🦽 Disability
1914: people with mental disabilities could be kept in institutions under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. 1928: the war had brought artificial limbs, pensions and the King's National Roll for disabled ex-servicemen, but others still had little help.
The pattern is change for some, little for others. Women and working-class children gained most. Ethnic minorities and many disabled people gained least.
Common mistakes
- Saying the 1918 Act raised the leaving age to 15 or 16. It was 14.
- Thinking the Act made secondary school free for all. That came later.
- Mixing up the dates: the Education Act was 1918, the Aliens Act was December 1919.
- Saying the Aliens Act helped minorities. It limited the rights and jobs of foreign nationals.
Exam-style question
This is a Paper 2 Section B (a) question. You must give TWO ways and compare both sides each time. One way on its own can score no more than half marks (3 out of 6).
Explain TWO ways in which the situation of ethnic minorities in Britain in 1928 was similar to their situation in 1914. [6 marks]
Model answer
One similarity is that minorities still faced violence. In the years before the war, in 1911, Chinese laundries in Cardiff were attacked by crowds, and in 1919 riots broke out in Liverpool, where a black sailor, Charles Wootton, was killed, and in Cardiff. In both periods mob hostility was aimed at minority communities.
A second similarity is that the law gave no protection from discrimination. In 1914 there was no law against racial discrimination, and in 1928 there still was not. If anything, the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act of 1919 added limits on foreign nationals, deporting former enemy aliens and closing the civil service to them, so the law was still on the side of the majority.
What lifts it to the top level: each way names a precise fact from 1914 and from 1928, so both sides are compared directly.
Exam tip
For "Explain two ways... similar" write two paragraphs, and in each put a fact from the earlier date and a fact from the later date. Use "In 1914... and in 1928..." to make the comparison clear.