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Ram, Rab and the civil servants: a lawyer and the making of the ‘Great Education Act 1944’

By common consent, the Education Act of 1944 was the most important educational reform of the century for England and Wales. This article seeks to reveal the role of a lawyer in the making of the legislation and thereby to reassess past interpretations of how the Act was put together. It is clear that the person who drafted the Act, Sir Granville Ram, had an impact on the content of certain sections. The article begins with an outline of the Act and competing interpretations of how it came to be made. It explores the context within which Ram, as a Parliamentary Counsel, did his drafting during the war years. It then turns to the making of clauses in four specific areas of reform. First, local education authorities were given the power to create new types of secondary schools, including comprehensive schools. Secondly, there was a new structure for regulating private education. Thirdly, the Minister of Education was given important new powers. Fourthly, women were no longer required to resign from teaching when they married. These four areas provide examples of how Ram could influence the shape of the statute, and they also reveal that on each occasion his influence was felt in a different way.