1. The Medical Branch of the Board of Education From the end of
the nineteenth century there was a gradual development of
services dealing with the health and physical condition of
children. The Medical Branch of the Board of Education (later
the Special Services Branch) was set up in 1907. Its
responsibilities included special educational treatment for
handicapped children, the school medical service, the provision
of school meals and (later) milk, the organisation and
inspection of physical training, maternity and infant welfare
(transferred to the Ministry of Health in 1919) and nursery
education. General files on all aspects of the work of the
branch are in ED 50 and later ED 269. 2. Special educational
treatment The statutory foundation of special educational
provision for handicapped children was laid in the last decade
of the 19th century and remained broadly unchanged until the
Education Act 1944. The Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf
Children) Act 1893 obliged every school authority to provide edu