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The History Of Reed's School
Reed’s is a successful independent day and boarding school, providing an education for just under 800 pupils between 11 and 18, with girls in the Sixth Form. The charitable Foundation remains an integral part of our ethos today, instilling in our pupils – past and present – many important values including respect, integrity, kindness and compassion.
The Reed’s Foundation was established in 1813 by the Rev Dr Andrew Reed. With financial support from the City of London and other dignitaries, Rev Reed founded the London Orphan Asylum in Shoreditch. Its raison d’être was to care and provide an education for destitute children, boys and girls, who had lost both parents or their father, with the mother unable to provide for them.
Based in Clapton from 1825, in 1871 the school moved to Watford. Just prior to the start of World War II it was renamed Reed’s School and the boys were evacuated to Totnes in Devon - girls to Towcester in Northamptonshire. After the War in 1946, the girls moved to a separate school, Dogmersfield in Hampshire, and the boys took up residency at our current site in Cobham, Surrey.
All through this time, Reed’s was a boarding Foundation School where all of the pupils were funded on bursaries with support mainly provided by companies within the City of London. However, after 1958, for financial reasons and to enable the work of the Foundation to continue, the School expanded to take fee-paying boarders and, in the mid 1960s, day pupils.
Royal Patronage
In 1815 HM King George IV ‘accorded his blessing’ by becoming the first Royal Patron of the School, a tradition which has continued to date.
ROYAL PATRONS SINCE 1815
1815 Edward, Duke of Kent
1817 Augustus, Duke of Sussex
1819 Victoria, Duchess of Kent
1819 King Leopold I of Belgium
1821 The King of Hanover
1822 Frederick, Duke of York
1823 King George IV
1826 Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
1826 King William IV
1837 Queen Victoria
1843 The Prince Consort
1856 King Edward VII
1870 Queen Alexandra
1910 King George V
1936 King George VI
1951 Queen Elizabeth II
