A public school in England and Wales is a type of fee-charging private school originally for older boys. The schools are "public" from a historical schooling context in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, (Christian) denomination, paternal trade or profession, or family affiliation with governing or military service, and also not being run for the profit of a private owner.
Although the term "public school" has been in use since at least the 12th century, its usage was formalised by the Public Schools Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 118), which put into law most recommendations of the 1864 Clarendon Report. Nine prestigious schools were investigated by Clarendon (including two day schools, Merchant Taylors' and St Paul's) and seven subsequently reformed by the Act: Eton, Shrewsbury, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, and Charterhouse. Team and competitive sports became an important part of the curriculum, which contributed to establishing the rules and propagating the growth of many different sports.
Though most public schools were originally founded under true charitable purposes for poor pupils, by the modern age conversely they have become elite institutions and are associated with the ruling class. Historically, public schools produced many of the military officers and administrators of the British Empire.
The term is rarely used in Scotland, where "public school" has been used since the early 18th century to refer to publicly funded schools, and was defined by the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 as including those managed by the school board of a parish, or of a burgh. There are instances of the term being used to refer to elite Scots private fee-paying schools.
Definition
There is no single or absolute definition of public school, and the use of the term has varied over time and according to context. The starting point was the contrast between a public school and private teaching (eg., provided by a hired tutor). In England and Wales schools that are called public schools are not funded from public taxation: schools that are so funded are generally termed "state schools".
Sydney Smith in an 1810 article published in The Edinburgh Review suggested the following:
Arthur Leach stated in his 1899 History of Winchester College: "The only working definition of a Public School ... is that it is an aristocratic or plutocratic school which is wholly or almost wholly a Boarding School, is under some form of more or less public control, and is ... non-local". Edward C. Mack defined a public school in 1938 as "a non-local endowed boarding school for the upper classes". Vivian Ogilvie in the 1957 The English Public School similarly suggests five "characteristics commonly associated with a public school":
In November 1965, the UK Cabinet considered the definition for use by the Public Schools Commission set up that year. Its starting point was the 1944 Fleming Committee definition, which used schools that were members of the then Headmasters' Conference, the Governing Bodies Association or the Girls' Schools Association. At that time, there were 276 such independent schools (134 boys and 142 girls), which the 1965 Public Schools Commission took in scope of its work alongside 22 maintained and 152 direct grant grammar schools.
In 2023, by the 1965 Public Schools Commission definition or the 1944 Fleming Committee definition, there were 302 independent secondary schools belonging to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (78% of HMC schools are co-educational, 9% were for boys only and 13% for girls only), and 152 independent girls' secondary schools belonging to the Girls' Schools Association.
The majority of public schools are affiliated with, or were established by, a Christian denomination, principally the Church of England, but in some cases the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches. A small number are non-denominational or inherently secular, including Oswestry School, Sevenoaks School, Bedales, and University College School.
The perception of a top tier of public schools is long standing, but always with some debate on membership. Howard Staunton's book of 1865 entitled The Great Schools of England considered the term meant the nine Clarendon Commission schools plus Cheltenham College, Christ's Hospital, and Dulwich College. In 1881, C. Kegan Paul & Co published Our Public Schools, with chapters on seven schools: Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, Marlborough, and Charterhouse. In 1893 Edward Arnold published a book entitled Great Public Schools, with a chapter on each of Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, Cheltenham, Rugby, Clifton, Westminster, Marlborough, Haileybury, and Winchester. The Bryce Report of 1895 (Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education) described the schools reformed by the Public Schools Act 1868 as the "seven 'great endowed schools'".
History
Early history
Public schools emerged from grammar schools established to educate pupils, usually destined for clerical orders, in Latin grammar. Thus, concerned with educating boys. The term "public" came into use because over time access to such schools was not restricted on the basis of home location, paternal occupation or status, and that they were subject to an element of public management or control, in contrast to private schools which were run for the personal profit of the owner(s). The origins of schools in England were primarily religious, although in 1640 the House of Commons invited the reformer and promoter of universal education Comenius to England to establish and participate in an agency for the promotion of learning. It was intended that by-products of this would be the publication of "universal" books and the setting up of schools for boys and girls. The English Civil War prevented any such reform.
Some schools are particularly old, such as The King's School, Canterbury , The King's School, Rochester , St Peter's School, York , Sherborne School , (refounded 1550 by Edward VI), Warwick School , King's Ely (once the Ely Cathedral Grammar School, then the King's School Ely when refounded in 1541 by Henry VIII, subsequently adopting the current name in 2012) and St Albans School . Until the Late Middle Ages most schools were controlled by the Church; and had specific entrance criteria; others were restricted to the sons of members of guilds, trades, or livery companies.
In 1382 William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England, founded Winchester College. In 1440 Henry VI founded Eton College. These schools had significantly larger foundations than the existing local grammar schools, had high level political patronage, and also accepted "non-local" pupils. This was "the start of a new kind of school". Edward VI's Chantries act of 1547 dissolved the religious endowments which funded many schools, which were then re-established under his name (Berkhamsted School , Sherborne School , Stamford School ) Elizabeth I refounded Westminster School in 1560, with new statutes, to select forty Queen's Scholars. This created a "triad" of privileged schools—Winchester, Eton and Westminster. From the 16th century onward, boys' boarding schools continued to be founded or endowed for public use.
Daniel Defoe in The Compleat English Gentleman of 1728, writes of "the great schools of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Felsted, Bishop Stortford (sic), Canterbury and others, where the children—nay, the eldest sons—of some of the best families in England have been educated."
By the end of the 17th century, the London day schools St Paul's and Merchant Taylors', together with the charitable foundations of Christ's Hospital and Charterhouse, had developed an elevated "standing in popular regard". By the end of the 18th century, two local grammar schools, Harrow and Rugby, had achieved national fame. In the case of Harrow, political sponsorship by aristocratic Whig politician James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos) played a significant role, but also, as was the case too with Rugby, an exemplary headmaster was a key factor in raising the status of the school. This phenomenon was also seen at Shrewsbury, where Samuel Butler was headmaster between 1798 and 1836.
In 1801 William Vincent, headmaster of Westminster published A Defence of Public Education. It contains the text "...comprize under the expression of Public Schools? Are we to understand only Winchester, Eton and Westminster? or are we to extend our notion, as we ought to do, to the other three great schools in the Metropolis; to Harrow, Rugby, Manchester, Wakefield and many more of equal magnitude in the North?"
In 1816 Rudolph Ackermann published a book which used the term "History of the Public Schools" of what he described as the "principal schools of England", entitled The History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster; with the Charter-House, the Schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors, Harrow, and Rugby, and the Free-School of Christ's Hospital.
In 1818 Nicholas Carlisle published a two-volume survey entitled A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales.A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales , 2 vols. (1818) The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire sent to the schools. The description of 475 schools range from one or two paragraphs to many pages of detail.
Thomas Arnold became headmaster of Rugby School in 1828, and the reforming actions he took during his fourteen years of tenure established a new model for the nineteenth and early twentieth century public school. Arnold developed the praepostor (or prefect) system, in which a group of senior boys were given disciplinary powers of other pupils. This became a standard method to establish good order in the public schools, which had developed a reputation for rowdiness and on occasion, serious disorder.
Separate preparatory schools (or "prep schools") for younger boys developed from the 1830s, with entry to the senior schools becoming limited to boys of at least 12 or 13 years old. The first of these was Windlesham House School, established with support from Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School between 1828 and 1841.
Victorian period
A royal commission, the Clarendon Commission (1861–1864), investigated nine of the more established schools, including seven boarding schools (Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Westminster and Winchester) and two day schools (St Paul's and Merchant Taylors').
The Public Schools Act 1868 subsequently regulated and reformed the seven boarding schools investigated by Clarendon, and in summary established and granted autonomy to new governing bodies for the seven schools and as part of that, released them from previous obligations under their founding charters to educate "boys on the Foundation" ie scholarship boys who paid nominal or no fees. The act gave the seven schools independence from direct jurisdiction or responsibility of the Crown, the established church, or the government. Henceforth each of these schools was to be managed by a board of governors. St Paul's School and the Merchant Taylors' School claimed successfully that their constitutions made them "private" schools, and were excluded from the requirements of this legislation.