The Reports on the Education of the Lower Orders were published between 1816 and 1819 by a select committee of the House of Commons (Parliament of the United Kingdom) under the chairmanship of Henry Brougham. The committee made only the second ever government inquiry into education, as it comprehensively investigated the provision of education for poor working class children in Great Britain during the early 19th century. The reports exposed the inadequate provision of schooling and the maladministration of charitable funds given for educating the poor. It was eventually used to justify the first state intervention into English and Welsh education in 1833 when the Treasury started to help fund the badly needed construction of new school-houses through an annual grant. It also started a parliamentary commission of inquiry into improving charitable foundations which eventually led to formation of present-day charities commission.
