The dominant theme is the examination of the development of the Teachers' Registration Movement and within this context to consider the elements of conflict bearing on policy and decision-making. The submission explores the relationship between private teachers, as represented by the College of Preceptors and external agencies, in ways that no other work does: the position of the government in relation to private teachers is considered in the context of the royal commissions on education, of the early examinations provided by the College of Preceptors, Oxford and Cambridge universities and the Royal Society of Arts, and of the Scholastic Registration Association. Ground-breaking themes are employed in that (a) a comprehensive account of the Teachers' Registration Movement is presented; (b) there is a consideration of the way in which conflict and divisions emerge within this development; (c) there is an examination of how elementary and secondary teachers interacted with the state over teachers' registration (this involved a small-scale project conducted by me within the Education Department. University of Wales, Swansea in 1999); (d) attempts are made to relate issues of the past to present-day practice, e.g. the re-emergence of earlier principles to the Beloe Report recommendations. The submission's extension of knowledge in the field is supported therefore in terms of the archival coverage between 1846 and the present day, and of explaining in considerable detail the financing, membership, policies, individual contributions, rules governing registration, and overall effectiveness of the teacher registration councils. As far as these issues are concerned, it is the focus on conflict within the development of the Teachers' Registration Movements that sets it apart from other contributions. Works prior to the submission did not have access to all of the relevant documentation at TNA and relied on other less informative sources. The essential task was to interpret a series of events that had not been fully examined before.