'Dear Me, How the Boy Does Grow': Accommodation, Identity and Birmingham School of Commerce, 1898–1970

Abstract

Commercial education has failed to attract the attention of educational historians. The principal institutions that provided such education for over seventy years, the colleges of commerce, were a significant alternative to the universities. This paper is an exploratory study of the history of one such institution, the Birmingham College of Commerce, from the late 1890s to its demise in 1970. The paper discusses the problems of definition that underlie any attempt at discussing commercial education and the colleges of commerce and outlines the main strands of the history of the college. There are five main themes of its history: the professionalisation of clerical and retail workers; expansion of non-academic work; increasing focus on higher level studies; lack of space; developing identity.

Keywords:

• COMMERCIAL EDUCATION
• PROFESSIONS
• COMMERCE
• FURTHER EDUCATION
• BIRMINGHAM