See also the Headmasters of Caterham Caterham today is the product of a co-ed merger between the Congregational School (formally renamed 'Caterham' in the mid-1920s) for boys and Eothen School for girls.
The Congregational School ('Caterham') 1811-1884 File:RevdJohnTownsend Portrait.jpg|
Rev. John Townsend (1757-1826), the founder of Caterham. File:Sir Thomas Lawrence02.jpg|
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) as depicted in
Sir Thomas Lawrence's unfinished portrait in 1828, when Wilberforce was a governor of the school.
Rev. John Townsend, the minister of the Jamaica Row Chapel at Bermondsey, founded the Congregational School in 1811 at 29
West Square, in
Newington, London. The year before he had written to "ministers, officers and all other members and friends" of
Congregationalist churches in England to share his concerns about the inadequate standard of education available to their sons. The
abolitionist politician and philanthropist
William Wilberforce was an early governor of the school until his death in 1833. In 1815, the school moved to a country house in
Lewisham, then a rural village on the outskirts of London. Rev. William J. Hope, the Headmaster from 1823 to 1852, was a close lifelong friend of the historian and philosopher
Thomas Carlyle. Hope met Carlyle when they were at school together at
Annan Academy before both going to the
University of Edinburgh. Though it is possible that Carlyle visited Hope at the school, it would only have been on an informal basis and so there is no record. Carlyle was greatly upset by Hope's death in 1853, which he described as a "mournful complexity of ill news". One of the earliest school photographs dates to around 1865 and depicts pupils at Lewisham with cricket bats. The historian Nigel Watson notes that, somewhat unusually for the period, Thomas Rudd - Headmaster from 1859 to 1894 - disapproved of
corporal punishment, writing that "I can do better without it". During his tenure of 35 years, Rudd also strengthened the Old Boy network at the school, which contributed to the creation of the Old Caterhamians' London club being established in 1899. The school was at Lewisham for nearly seventy years, during which time it gained prominence.
Samuel Morley, an abolitionist political radical and MP for Bristol was made Treasurer of the school from 1868.
William Ewart Gladstone distributed Speech Day prizes to pupils of the school in 1875, the year after his first term as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. File:43-44 West Square - geograph.org.uk - 4828923.jpg|Georgian terraces at
West Square,
Newington. Caterham was first founded at No.29 in 1811. 'Newington' is now a school house at Caterham. File:The Congregational School, Lewisham.jpg|The Congregational School at Lewisham in 1869 after the move there in 1815. 'Lewisham' is also a school house at Caterham today. File:Franz von Lenbach - Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone (1874).jpg|
William Ewart Gladstone distributed Speech Day prizes to pupils at the school a year after his first term at
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. File:Rev. Thomas Rudd (Caterham School).jpg|
Rev. Thomas Rudd, Headmaster of Caterham from 1859 to 1894, who notably for the period, disapproved of
corporal punishment. The architect
Edward Cooksworthy Robins FRIBA was known for designing educational buildings and was commissioned to design the new school at the present location in Caterham Valley. This was on the site of Withernden, which had been purchased by the school in 1882. Withernden House later became Headmaster's House and its formal garden became the Headmaster's Garden. Robins designed Caterham at the beginning of the
Arts-and-Crafts movement and some of his interiors - particularly the floral stained glass within the
Wilberforce Hall - are early examples of it.
Headmaster's House is on the far left. At its opening, what is now the
Old School demonstrated the onset of a new curriculum. Hugh Stafford notes that Caterham's original 1884 science laboratory - which no longer exists - was among the earliest in public schools. Similarly, the inside court (now the
Concourse) of the Old School was originally planned as a traditional college-like
quadrangle but instead was covered with an iron canopy to become a place deemed of greater modern value: a gymnasium fitted for practising new theory on exercise.
Sir James Whitehead, then the
Lord Mayor of London, opened the 'swimming bath' at Caterham in 1889. The Congregational Church towards the edge of the school estate was altered to also additionally serve as Caterham's school chapel. Stafford, a Master, recounted in the time before electric light that the school procession for evening services in winter "to chapel on a pitch dark night was not an easy task" for the pupils. The school's chamber choir continues to perform at the church to this day. The school retained its formal name 'The Congregational School' into the early-20th century but began to be colloquially known as 'Caterham' from as early as the 1880s. During this period, it was also colloquially referred to as 'Caterham College'. The club also welcomed well-known visitors such as the cartoonist
Sir Francis Carruthers Gould. Originally the club was separate from Caterham, but in 1901, it was amalgamated with the Old Caterhamians' Association. The club continued at the same address in Bloomsbury - though albeit eventually with irregular openings - until 1968. File:Samuel Morley, Vanity Fair, 1872-06-15.jpg|
Samuel Morley MP (1809–1886), the political radical and
abolitionist illustrated satirically here in
Vanity Fair, was once the Chair of Caterham. He laid the foundation stone for E.C. Robins' building on 23 October 1883. File:Sir James Whitehead.JPG|
Sir James Whitehead, 1st Baronet (1834-1917),
Lord Mayor or London, opened the swimming bath at Caterham in 1889, the same year of this caricature from
Vanity Fair. File:Southampton Row, WC2 (2) - geograph.org.uk - 1132800.jpg|Bloomsbury's
Southampton Row, where Old Caterhamians established a
club at premises in a building there in 1899 which lasted until 1968. The building has since been demolished. During the
First World War, 69 Old Caterhamians were killed. Caterham commissioned the President of the
Royal Society of Sculptors,
Sir William Reynolds-Stephens, to sculpt a memorial tablet which was installed into the
Vestibule in 1923. In addition to this, to school ran an architectural competition for its Memorial Hall (now housing the
Maggs Library), adjudicated by Stanley Hamp
FRIBA. The architect, artist and Old Caterhamian
Walter Monckton Keesey OBE won the competition and in 1924, exhibited an elevation of the building at the
Royal Academy of Arts at
Burlington House. Caterham's Memorial Hall was opened in 1925 by
William Hulme Lever, 2nd Viscount Leverhulme. In 1922, Caterham held its first biennial Science Exhibition in the dining hall, now the Wilberforce Hall. This was opened as a temporary museum to the wider community to showcase recent discoveries of the day. In 1924, exhibits included the
Autochrome Lumière,
Geissler tubes, a
cloud chamber (particle detector) designed by
C.T.R. Wilson and an aquarium of
axolotl which used an early electric aerator. A major engineering interest of the day was the in quickly developing motor-car and motorbike industry, and Caterham collaborated with manufacturers
J. A. Prestwich,
Triumph and
Sturney Archer to create a display of engines and gearboxes. Caterham was loaned exhibition apparati from the
Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company (which supplied the
University of Cambridge) and
Taylor Hobson. Such a university-level scientific focus was unique among public schools at the time. In 1924, the Headmaster
Alan Percival Mottram was admitted to the Headmasters' Conference (now the
HMC). In March 1926, the composer
Ralph Vaughan Williams visited Caterham to watch a performance of a condensed version of his two-act opera '
Hugh the Drover', premiered in 1924. Caterham's production was prominent enough for '
The Times' to report on it: Vaughan Williams was said to be moved and afterwards believed "that the sincerity of the whole performance had shown him the points at which the music itself lacked sincerity". He went on to revise the opera throughout his life. In February 1932,
Lt Col Richard Henry Heslop (later the
SOE agent codenamed 'Xavier' in the
Second World War) visited Caterham to present a lecture on 'Africa' with a film projector. In 1934, the historian
D.G.E. Hall was made Headmaster and resided at Headmaster's House at Caterham. There, in addition to his role, he researched and wrote '
''Europe and Burma: A study of European Relations with Burma to the Annexation of Thibaw's Kingdom,1886' ''which was published by Oxford in 1945. File:The Memorial Hall, Caterham School.jpg|The
Memorial Hall at Caterham, shortly after it was opened in 1925. File:Viscount Leverhulme, President of the International Committee of Scientific Management, 1938-09-19 LCCN2016874019 (cropped).jpg|
William Hulme Lever, 2nd Viscount Leverhulme (1888-1949) was a Chair and benefactor of Caterham, and opened the
Memorial Hall in July 1925. File:Vaughan Williams and Holst walking in the Malvern Hills 1921.jpg|Composers
Gustav Holst (left) and
Ralph Vaughan Williams (right) in 1921.
The Times reported that Vaughan Williams was greatly moved when he saw Caterham's performance of his opera
Hugh the Drover in 1926. Holst's daughter
Imogen attended and later taught at Eothen, which merged with Caterham in 1995. File:Caterham School bookplate.jpg|Caterham's engraved
bookplate from 1926. File:D.G.E. Hall, c.1935.jpg|The historian
D.G.E. Hall,
Headmaster of Caterham from 1934 to 1949. The
bass vocalist Robert Easton was invited to the school in January 1939 following his lead in the
Royal Albert Hall debut of
Ralph Vaughan Williams'
Serenade to Music and gave a concert which took place in what is now Caterham's Rudd Hall, then newly-built.
1939-1995 In 1985, the pianist
Peter Katin visited Caterham to present a piano recital at the Memorial Hall, now the
Maggs Library. He is reported to have disliked Caterham's antique
Steinway and so the school arranged to have it replaced to his liking in time for his next recital there in 1987.
Eothen 1892-1995 In 1892, Catherine Pye founded a school for girls in a house at Harestone Hill in Caterham with her sister Winifred. Pye was born in 1869 and in 1890 received an exhibition to attend
Newnham College at the
University of Cambridge under its first principal, the early suffragist
Anne Clough. The founding of Eothen was a result of changing perspectives about the standards and objectives of female education. The Misses Pye were particularly focused on preparing pupils to receive places at universities, with the historian Nigel Watson noting that even by the early-20th century, "such occurrences were still rare" which explains Eothen's early tradition "to celebrate every university place by lighting up the school grounds with Chinese lanterns and fairy lamps." In 1897, the school admitted boarders and was named 'Eothen', an Ancient Greek term for "from the dawn." Over the decades, surrounding Victorian houses were incorporated into the school. Eothen's grounds were adjacent to the Congregational Church of Caterham, which also served as the school chapel for Caterham School. Eothen had a reputation for music under the composer
Jane Joseph who taught there from 1916 and wrote the school's song in 1928. The composer
Imogen Holst was one of her pupils, and Holst later returned to Eothen to also teach in 1932. In 1939, Holst wrote the
Eothen suite for small orchestra. Through Holst's musical connections,
Ralph Vaughan Williams visited and the Russian pianist
Nina Milkina gave her first concert in England at Eothen. Upon merger, Caterham adopted Eothen's motto of 'Veritas Sine Timore' (Truth Without Fear). The
Pye Centre at Caterham was later named in memory of the Misses Pye.
Caterham 1995- After the merger with Eothen in 1995, Caterham became fully co-educational. In 2010,
Breck Bednar joined the First Form at Caterham and left in 2012 before his 2014 murder due to
online grooming. After his death, Caterham fundraised for the Breck Foundation which was established in his memory to spread awareness about online safeguarding. 2011 marked two centuries since the founding of Caterham. In October 2011, the bicentenary service was held at
Westminster Abbey and conducted by the
Dean of Westminster,
Dr John Hall. The bicentenary banner used in the service is now housed in Caterham's
Wilberforce Hall. Over 2000 people were invited to the service. In February 2012,
HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, visited Caterham to meet the Headmaster Julian Thomas and Head Boy and Head Girl. He opened the school's redeveloped
Leathem Pavilion and reviewed the CCF. In 2023, Caterham was awarded 'Best Independent School of the Year' in the United Kingdom by the
Times Educational Supplement. In the same year, it was the first and only school in the UK to receive three 'Key Areas of Strength' in its latest
ISI inspection. It is also an '
Apple Distinguished School'. In August 2025,
The Times reported that Caterham achieved the highest percentage of GCSE grade 9s across all co-ed private schools in Surrey and Kent, placing it sixth in the UK. In September 2025, along with
Eton,
Brighton,
Canford and
Gresham's, Caterham was shortlisted for the 2026
Tatler Schools Guide Awards for the title of best
public school in the country. In 2025, Caterham was ranked by
The Sunday Times as 38th out of the UK's highest achieving 100 independent schools (on combined GCSE and A-Level results), placing it within the top 1.5% of independent schools within the UK. Caterham has been recognised as a member of the 'Edtech 50' group formed under
The Education Foundation think tank based in Westminster. A major factor for this is Caterham's own subsidiary, Sphynx AI. ==Admissions==