Boarding School - History

History

The practice of sending children to other families or to schools so that they could learn together is of very long standing, recorded in classical literature and in UK records going back over a thousand years. In Europe, a practice developed by early mediaeval times of sending boys to be taught by literate clergymen, either in monasteries or as pages in great households. The school often considered the world's oldest boarding school, The King’s School, Canterbury, counts the development of the monastery school in around 597 AD to be the date of the school's founding. The author of the Croyland Chronicle recalls being tested on his grammar by Edward the Confessor's Queen Editha in the abbey cloisters as a Westminster schoolboy, in around the 1050s. Monastic schools as such were generally dissolved with the monasteries themselves under Henry VIII, although for example Westminster School was specifically preserved by the King's letters patent and it seems likely that most schools were immediately replaced. Winchester College founded by Bishop William of Wykeham in 1382 and Oswestry School founded by David Holbache in 1407 are the oldest boarding schools in continual operation.