The Royal Dockyard Schools

Abstract

The Royal Dockyard Schools, UK, were set up in the 1840s to try to overcome the poor educational standard of shipwright apprentices in the naval dockyards. By the end of the century, the Schools had progressed for beyond the limited aims for which they were created and had developed into high-calibre technical colleges catering not only for shipwright but also for electrical and mechanical engineering apprentices, whose influence was to extend for outside the naval dockyards. The Schools continued largely unchanged for the first half of the 20th Century but, after World War II, changes in the UK's social and educational policy made them increasingly unviable. The last of the Schools closed in 1971.