This essay will attempt to determine whether access to free education for all in the UK has led to the creation of a meritocratic society. A meritocracy is a social system in which success depends solely on a person's skills and efforts rather than their social status or gender. It is an “extension of a general merit reward system”. (Sen: 2000: 8). Any person, no matter who they are or where they come from, can achieve their goals through hard work. In the education system, rewards are qualifications, these enable a person to progress to other stages of life and are therefore essentially a vital form of social mobility. Sen (2000: 1) states that "[t]he concept of 'merit' depends deeply on our vision of a good society." Before the Industrial Revolution, the education system was extremely limited. Most children were schooled at home or in small church schools. The education system in England at this time consisted of a "haphazard system of parochial and private adventure schools". (Williams, cited in www.educationengland.org.uk/history). They had only received a certain level of education and the main emphasis was on the importance of working on a farm and the skills needed to do so. Throughout history, a girl's education "if she was lucky enough to have one...consisted of religious instruction, reading, writing, and grammar, as well as occasional housework like spinning… [she was] thin, superficial and incoherent.” (www.educationengland.org.uk/history). Families were extremely self-sufficient and generations of families lived together and all took part in the duties and responsibilities associated with farming, there were no specific gender roles, they were all encompassing. Any type of higher education was reserved in the middle of the article......k/history (Accessed: 04/28/2014). Grint, K. (2005) The Sociology of Work, 3rd ed. ., Cambridge: Polity Press. Livesey, C. Lawson, T (2005) As Sociology for AQA, 2nd ed. England: Hodder Education. MacVeigh, T (2012) “Can a meritocratic education system guarantee equality? », Irish Marxist Review, 1.4(), pp. 27-36. Sen, A, (2000) “Chapter 1” in Arrow, KJ Bowles, S. Darlauf, SN (editors), “Meritocracy & Economic Inequality”, Chichester: Princetown University Press, pp. 1-16. Stephens, WB (1998) Education in Britain 1750-1914, Basingstoke: Macmillan.Taylor, S. (2011) Proper Men, Proper Women: Gender Roles in Contemporary British Society, available at: www.open.edu /openlearn/body-mind/proper-men-proper-women-gender-roles-contemporary-uk-society (Accessed: 28/04/2014). Tomlinson, S. (2005) Education in a post-welfare society social, England: Open University Press.