 Another contemporaneous source of information, upon which the following is largely based, is provided by two editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, the eleventh of 1910 and the fourteenth of 1929.These editions contain articles which conveniently indicate how examination, as a method of gaining recognition for the attainment of the specialist knowledge and skill required of a professional practitioner, had grown and had been thought of in the period leading up to the passing of the 1931 Act.The background to the developments in education and the method of attaining professional qualification had been the unprecedented development of industrial and commercial activity in the United Kingdom and other countries in the course of the nineteenth century.