This thesis studies the significance of the reformatory as a nineteenth century institution whose purpose was to reduce and eventually eliminate Juvenile crime. It examines in particular the reformatory school and the long-term industrial school (together with its products the truant and day industrial school). It is argued that the growth and development of these schools was governed by the dynamic interaction of social pressures and institutional responses, but the Home Office's position between these two forces was often a formative influence in its own right. Some of the traditional interpretations of reformatory history are reviewed critically, particularly the view that reformatory and industrial schools were the creations of wide-ranging fears about juvenile criminality, and that Home Office Schools were no longer seen as socially relevant by the end of the nineteenth century. There are two fundamental themes. The first is concerned with the ideological underpinning of the industrial and reformatory school movement, both at its inception and during its development in the second half of the century. The theory and practice of the institutions forms the second theme, and a detailed study of daily regimes is integral to an attempt to assess how legal and social changes were interpreted and acted upon in the schools. The final part of the thesis suggests that toward the end of the nineteenth century Home Office Schools adapted in a variety of ways to the changing demands made upon them, and continued to function as significant agents in society's attempts to remodel the characters of its non-conforming children.