PRIOR to the First World War, Jewish entrants into the solicitors’ profession and the medical schools in England were confined to a small proportion of the upper and middle classes. During the First World War and into the 1920s, it appears, children of east European Jewish immigrants to England began to train as doctors in increasingly large numbers; but few became solicitors, and even fewer barristers, until the late 1920s and 1930s. Why was this? Cost was one highly significant factor. If a young man aspired to become a solicitor, his parents were required to pay a premium of between 300 and 500 guineas in the 1930s and 1940s, together with a stamp fee of £80, and a salary was paid to a trainee only in exceptional circumstances. This meant a long period of nonearning work, for articles were usually for five years—though if the articled clerk had passed his higher school certificate examination the period was reduced to three years, and if he was a university graduate it was four years. When Ariel Solomon (1908‒2001) became articled to Messrs Cohen and Cohen in 1929 his mother had to sell her jewellery to raise the money for his premium of 500 guineas. Lucien Isaacs (1907‒2001), whose father was a commercial traveller of modest means, was fortunate to be taken on in 1924 as an articled clerk by Mr Dolman, who not only set the premium at a lower figure of 300 guineas but agreed to accept a payment of 150 guineas with the balance to follow; he also provided his articled clerk with a wage of 10 shillings a week. From various sources, it is clear that most parents paid the solicitor to whom their son was articled a premium of 300 guineas, though if the solicitor knew the boy's family well the premium was sometimes waived altogether. In contrast, a medical student in the late 1920s had to pay fees of only £35‒£40 per annum for a five year programme of studies at medical school, and many of the brighter students won scholarships which covered the cost of their training in part or in whole.