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This evidence based study is derived from other work in progress related to the history of engineering education in the UK. Its interest lies in the fact that in 1955/56 the British government created a sub-system of higher technological education in England and Wales that had as its objective, the education of highly qualified engineers and applied scientists for manufacturing industry. This sub-system came to an end in 1964/5. While it could have been the subject of an official evaluation, it was not. However, fortuitously, it was established during a period increasing interest in research in higher education, and several researches addressed various aspects of the system that, accidentally, make a retrospective, but partial informal evaluation possible. The discussion is presented in two papers because of the structure of the conference, and the need to provide the detailed explanation of the cultural system in which the development took place which would be of substantial length. That is the purpose of this, the first paper. Together these papers have a secondary function of showing factors that contributed to the success and failure of a major innovation in order that the mistakes made will not be repeated in the future: that is to foster learning of the collective past. Their final purpose is more international collaboration among engineering educators and its research fraternity. Since the social forces (attitudes, beliefs and values) at work in society ultimately determine the success or failure of educational innovations, part 1 (this paper) shows the importance of social class in what is valued and not valued in the English educational system. The academic is preferred to the vocational. Grammar schools and universities are associated with the academic. Technical and further education colleges with the vocational. The antecedent philosophy driving this innovation in degree level technological education, as expressed in the 1945 report of the Percy Committee on Higher Technological Education placed the Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATs) created in 1955/6 firmly in the vocational sector. The results of the investigations carried out in the CATs reported in part 2 (the second paper) showed that schoolteachers and their pupils tended to view the CATs as second class citizens: that most students had good experiences of industrial training although many believed it could be improved, and that the curriculum offered tended to model that found in the universities. The Robbins Committee believed that the curriculum offered was of degree level standard and recommended that the CATs be given university status, which they were in 1964/5. For the convenience of the reader part 1 is preceded by a list of abbreviations, and a time line. The research for the papers summarised in part 2 took place between 1960 and 1965. A note on problems of presenting studies about non-American systems of engineering and technological education at ASEE conferences is included in the introduction to part 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]