The main purpose of this article is to clarify the British pattern of the introduction of technical instruction, analyzing the economic influence of the activity of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education at the end of the 19th century. This paper also focuses upon the fact that the City and Guilds attached importance to the opinion of small- and medium-scale merchants and manufacturers in Britain.
As a first industrial nation, Britain had preserved entrenched institutional structures since the Industrial Revolution and as regards technical instruction, the state was reluctant to create the polytechnics and the scientific facilities like Germany. In Britain, on the whole, some voluntary societies, one of which was City and Guilds, endeavored to promote technical instruction throughout the 19th century.
The conclusion of this paper can be summarized as follows. City and Guilds, which consisted of members of the Corporation of London and sixteen Livery Companies, conducted a nationwide technological exam for the various types of merchants and manufacturers and built the first technical college, Finsbury Technical College, in London. This college particularly attracted small- and medium-scale merchants and manufacturers who worked around London and coped with industrialization by relying upon their manual technologies. City and Guilds satisfied their needs concerning higher knowledge or information to catch up with the technical standards of their rivals. Moreover, they provided an opportunity to centralize the technical instruction system in Britain.