Rab Butler

Butler's Education Act of 1944 made secondary education free and universal in England and Wales, raised the leaving age to 15 and created the Ministry of Education. Much of his skill went into months of quiet negotiation with the Anglican and Catholic churches over the future of their schools, producing the voluntary-aided and voluntary-controlled categories that still exist. The tripartite system of grammar, technical and secondary modern schools that followed is the contested part of his legacy.