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Even a simple, unopposed case took at least a year, said the Endowed Schools Commissioners when they reported in 1872 on their progress in working the Act. A difficult case would need at least two, while if difficulties were joined to opposition, it was hard to say how much time would be required. By way of illustration they cited Bristol, where they had begun work in 1870 but did not expect to have settled the Schemes ‘for at least some months to come’. In the event this proved too sanguine. The Bristol Schemes were not finally settled until 1875, along with many others which had been completed by the Commissioners and forwarded to the Education Department before the end of their term of office but which received the Royal Assent only later.

In view of all this it is not surprising to find that at the end of their five years' labour they had made Schemes for scarcely more than onetenth of the three thousand endowments which came within their purview. Some of these had had to be for elementary schools. So far as secondary schooling was concerned, they could claim credit at the end of the day for one hundred and thirty schools for boys, forty-seven for girls and a mixed school, at Thornton.