St Paul’s School is a selective independent day school for boys aged 13 to 18, founded in 1509 by John Colet and located on a 43 acre site beside the River Thames in Barnes, London. The school operates within the charitable Colet Foundation under the governance of the Mercers’ Company and has a long academic tradition linked to humanist learning, with early influence from Erasmus and the introduction of Greek into the curriculum. Since 1881, it has had an associated preparatory school, St Paul’s Juniors, which shares the same campus.
St Paul’s was one of the nine schools examined by the Clarendon Commission in the 1860s but was excluded from the Public Schools Act 1868 on the grounds of its independent status. The school has continued to expand through successive relocations, most recently its move from Hammersmith to Barnes in 1968, and is currently undergoing a long term redevelopment programme known as the Renewal Campaign. The school is known for its academic outcomes, rowing and rugby traditions, and an alumni body that includes notable figures across public life, science, literature, politics, sport and the arts.