Marlborough College

Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 900 pupils, approximately 45% of whom are female. New pupils are admitted at the ages of 13+ (Year Nine, referred to as "Shell entry") and 16+ (Lower Sixth).

Marlborough was, in 1968, the first major British independent boys' school to allow girls into the sixth form,[5] setting a trend that many other schools followed subsequently. The school became fully co-educational in 1989. The school made a major contribution to the School Mathematics Project (from 1961) and initiated the teaching of Business Studies at A level (from 1968). In 1963 a group of boys, led by the future political biographer Ben Pimlott, wrote a book, Marlborough, an open examination written by the boys, describing life at the school. The writer and television critic T.C. Worsley wrote about predatory masters at the school in his critically acclaimed autobiography Flannelled Fool: A Slice of a Life in the Thirties.[6]

In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents.[7] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.[8] Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."[9]

The college is built beside the Mound, the former motte of a Norman castle. No remains of the castle can be seen today. Radiocarbon dating of core samples in the early 2010s indicated that the origins of the Mound date from 2400 BC. This is close to the dates established for Silbury Hill.[10][11]

The main focus of the college is the Court. This is surrounded by buildings in a number of different styles. At the south end is the back of an early 18th-century mansion, later converted to a coaching inn which was bought as the first building for the school.[12] Next to it are the old stables, now converted into boarding houses. The west side consists of the 1959 red brick dining hall, and a Victorian boarding house now converted to other purposes. The north west corner is dominated by its Victorian Gothic style chapel by the architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner which has a collection of pre-Raphaelite style paintings by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and stained glass by Old Marlburian William Morris.

The rest of the Court is surrounded by buildings in styles ranging from the "Jacobethan" (a name coined by Old Marlburian John Betjeman) to classical Georgian and Victorian prison. The latter, B house (now just called B1), was (along with the College Chapel) designed by the Victorian architect Edward Blore, whose other works included the facade of Buckingham Palace (since remodelled) and the Vorontsovsky Palace in Alupka, Ukraine.[13]

On the other side of the Mound is the Science laboratory, built in 1933. It is an early example of shuttered concrete construction and was listed as a building of architectural significance in 1970.[14]

Pupils are assigned to one of the Houses on entering the school. This is where they make their home while at school. The Houses compete against one another in sports.

The Houses are divided into In-College Houses which are mostly gathered around the central Court, and Out-College Houses at sites around the western side of the town. Unusually, the older In-College Houses were not historically given names but were referred to by an alphanumeric title. Newer Houses have been given names reflecting their location or commemorating a figure from the school's past.[15]

In 1933, the school lent its name to one of the steam locomotives in the Southern Railway's Schools class, which were named after English public schools. The locomotive bearing the school's name (no. 922, later 30922) was withdrawn in 1961.[17]

"Marlborough College". Caricature of George Charles Bell by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1902.

• 1843–1851 Matthew Wilkinson
• 1852–1858 George Edward Lynch Cotton
• 1858–1870 George Granville Bradley
• 1871–1876 Frederick William Farrar
• 1876–1903 George Charles Bell
• 1903–1911 Frank Fletcher
• 1911–1916 St John Basil Wynne Willson
• 1916–1926 Cyril Norwood
• 1926–1939 George Charlewood Turner
• 1939–1952 Francis Melville Heywood
• 1952–1961 Thomas Ronald Garnett
• 1961–1972 John Christopher Dancy
• 1972–1986 Roger Wykeham Ellis
• 1986–1993 David Robert Cope
• 1993–2003 Edward John Humphrey Gould
• 2004–2012 Nicholas Alexander Sampson
• 2012–2018 Jonathan Leigh
• 2018– Louise Moelwyn-Hughes[18]

• Stephen Borthwick, later head of Epsom College[19]

Former pupils include the Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar, Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, wartime poet Siegfried Sassoon, writer Dick King-Smith, journalists Frank Gardner, James Mates, Tom Newton Dunn and Hugh Pym, YO! Sushi founder Simon Woodroffe, comedian Jack Whitehall, singers Nick Drake and Chris de Burgh, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rab Butler, Home Secretary Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor, Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher, Catherine Middleton (later Princess of Wales), Pippa Middleton, Princess Eugenie of York, Samantha Cameron, fashion leaders Amanda Harlech and Stella Tennant, businessman Kevin Maxwell, and Ghislaine Maxwell.

See List of Old Marlburians for notable former pupils. Societies for former pupils include the Marlburian Club[20] and the Old Marlburian Lodge (of Freemasons).[21]

There are three academic terms in the year:

• The Michaelmas Term, from early September to mid December (new boys, girls and lower-sixth candidates are now usually only admitted at the start of the Michaelmas Half);
• The Lent Term, from mid January to late March;
• The Summer Term, from late April to late June or early July.

• The Heretick – a magazine published by students
• List of independent schools in the United Kingdom
• Education in the United Kingdom
• Marlborough College Malaysia
• Marlborough Mound

• Hinde, Thomas (1992). Paths of progress: A history of Marlborough College. London: James & James. ISBN 0907383335.

• Official website
• Profile on the ISC website
• ISI Inspection Reports
• Blackett Observatory