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The Royal Air Force, in the early period of its life after the First World War, needed to train an elite of engineers in a wide variety of trades for aircraft maintenance which was becoming increasingly technical. To meet this need Lord Trenchard conceived and planned the Royal Air Force Aircraft Apprenticeship Scheme. In existence at the time there was already at Halton a 'Boy Mechanics' Training School, set up on 10th September 1917, to produce fitters and riggers for the Royal Flying Corps.

 

In October 1919, a similar School was formed alongside the Cadet College at Cranwell, at which the first entry of Boys recruited for a 3-year Apprenticeship began training. In March 1920, the School at Halton was renamed No.1 School of Technical Training (Boys) and at Cranwell, No.2 School of Technical Training (Boys). Halton received its first entry of Boys in January 1922 at which time the rank of Aircraft Apprentice was adopted.

 

Apprentice training at Halton has continued uninterrupted since that time, although the Apprenticeship Scheme has undergone changes over the years. Halton Apprentices The first Halton Entry numbered 514 Apprentices and during the 1920s, entries were 400 - 600 strong. By the early 1930s they had dropped to just over 200, but then in 1934, the threat of another European war became clear and a rearmament programme was started in Britain that included the expansion of the Service which Trenchard had so successfully laid the foundations. In 1939, with war almost certain, Apprenticeship training was cut from 3 years to 2.5 years, the intake expanded to over 1000 Apprentices.

 

By March 1940 the Apprentice course was reduced again to 2 years and the number of trainees accepted had to be heavily cut back, as most of the instructors - very many of them of course ex-Apprentices - were diverted to the training of wartime conscripts. At the height of the preparations for war over five thousand airmen had been in training at Halton, but the task declined rapidly after the war in the initial euphoria of peacetime Europe.

 

The 3 year Apprenticeship remained the core of RAF technical training, with intakes three times a year to match the end of the school terms; by the mid-1950s with the onset of the Cold War, the Apprenticeship population at Halton numbered some 2500. In 1964, there was a more fundamental change in the training of Apprentices, in an effort to match the growing complexity of RAF aircraft and their systems. This led to the replacement of Aircraft Apprentices by what were called Technician Apprentices and Craft Apprentices. The scheme ran until 1973, when Apprentice Engineering Technicians (A and P) - airframe and propulsion - were introduced and continued until the final Apprentice Entry No. 155.

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