The cry for useless knowledge: education for a new Victorian technology

Electrical engineering was a key element in late 19th century technical education. The paper describes the forms it took in the constituent institutions of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education: Finsbury College, the Central Institution and the Technological Examinations system; and describes the intellectual environment into which they were placed. It is shown how the training, professional activities and technocratic ideals of a small group of engineer-scientists employed by the Institute, principally W.E. Ayrton, J. Perry and S.P. Thompson, enabled them to exercise a controlling influence on the style, content and direction of electrical training at all levels and to create a new `applied science¿¿ of electrical engineering which cut through contemporary theorising about the function and methods of technical education. Some of the dilemmas which their programme faced are still unresolved.