Timeline for Why did the Civil Service in the UK become so associated with Oxbridge?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 hours ago | vote | accept | Nethesis | ||
| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Henry | In 2024, of the 986 individuals recommended for "Fast Stream" appointments in the Civil Service, 136 (14%) went to Oxbridge. So if there was any association in the past, it is much smaller now. | |
| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Henry | There are several different trends combined here: the introduction of meritocratic selection to the Civil Service starting with the Northcote–Trevelyan reforms of the mid 19th century, the establishment of other universities in England in various waves also starting from the mid-19th century but much larger now, meritocratic selection to Oxbridge at the start of the 20th century, the professionalisation of the senior Civil Service from the 1960s, and the relative decline of Civil Service pay and status from the 1970s and 1980s onwards. | |
| S 13 hours ago | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| 14 hours ago | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| 15 hours ago | comment | added | Kate Bunting | Presumably you refer to the upper echelons of the Civil Service. It covers a large range of occupations which are not, and couldn't possibly be, restricted to Oxbridge graduates. | |
| 17 hours ago | history | became hot network question | |||
| 22 hours ago | answer | added | DJClayworth | timeline score: 13 | |
| yesterday | comment | added | canonacer | @Nethesis. Glad it helped. I used he search term "civil service uk oxbridge historically" if that helps. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Nethesis | @canonacer I will note that google gives different results for different people, unfortunately mine was less helpful than yours, giving me the impression that the answer must have been more complex than it ultimately turned out to be! So thank you very much for sharing, it's quite fascinating to me how overt the bias was. I suppose there's a separate question of why this bias existed, but I also suppose that's a much broader question (and I feel a bit more confident now that if I persist, google might actually help me find out the answer). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | canonacer | A very quick google search revealed this "Whitehall - the generic term for the civil service - was to be opened up to the meritorious products of the finest British universities, “a non-political administrative class educated in the moral values of a liberal education further developed by a reformed Oxford and Cambridge”.3 Although there was immense contemporary controversy the plans of the report were eventually put into effect. In 1855 a Civil Service Commission was appointed" From here: civilservant.org.uk/library/1997_evolution_1848-1997.pdf | |
| yesterday | comment | added | MCW♦ | Documenting preliminary research will improve both the probability of an answer and the quality of the answer(s) | |
| S yesterday | review | First questions | |||
| yesterday | |||||
| S yesterday | history | asked | Nethesis | CC BY-SA 4.0 |