Payment by Results ( 1862- 1897): Ensuring a Good Return on Governmental Expenditure

"Payment by results" ( 1862- 1897) was a system whereby the annual governmental grant for English and Welsh elementary schools depended for the most part on how well pupils answered in the examination conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectors. In this article I review its origin, its principles, its practice, and its effects. My main conclusion is that it was a narrow, restrictive, Philistine system of educational accountability. It impeded for the second half of the 19th century any hope that England's elementary education might swiftly advance from its generally appalling condition during the first half of the century when the theories and practices scorned in the likes of Dickens's Hard Times were more the norm than the exception.