Luton Modern School, opened 1908. Photo: T. G. Hobbs.

In a time of stress, wouldn't it be advisable to allow lads marking time at school to leave and meet the demand in the town for boy workers to make up for men who had enlisted?

The question was addressed to the Education Committee by Councillor Henry Impey at the November 9th, 1915, meeting of Luton Town Council. He thought they might very well allow some of the boys to leave if their parents so desired. It was being done in other places and in the county.

However, Councillor George Warren, Chairman of the Education Committee, said it was not set within the scope of the committee to give such consent, for in the town boys must attend school until they were 14 unless they obtained a labour certificate. In the rural areas they could leave at 13.

The Town Clerk (Mr William Smith) said there was a way in which it could be done. It was a matter of some importance, and if they approached the Board of Education and got an implied consent or any consent at all, they could do it. The Board of Education had at last realised there was a war. It took a great many months for them to do it, and they never referred to it, except under the terms of "exceptional circumstances". Perhaps now they had got it into their heads that there was a war they might be disposed, as other Government departments had been, to sanction certain changes. The boys might as well be doing useful work.

Councillor Yarrow said that a good many boys who had already reached the higher standards would learn far more by going into some of the local warehouses than by continuing at school another six months.

The Mayor suggested that the chairman and deputy chairman of the education committee might carry the matter on.

[The Luton News: Thursday, November 11th, 1915]