Public Schools Act 1868
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The Public Schools Act 1868 was legislation passed by the UK Parliament to regulate nine major UK boys' schools. These schools educated the majority of the sons of the British upper class, and still do so although public schools presently operate a far more inclusive policy.
It was based on the report of the Clarendon Commission, a Royal Commission on Public Schools which sat from 1861 to 1864, and investigated conditions and abuses which had grown up over the centuries at nine, great, nominally charitable schools:
- Charterhouse School
- Eton College
- Harrow School
- Merchant Taylors' School
- Rugby School
- Shrewsbury School
- St Paul's School
- Westminster School
- Winchester College
The Act removed the schools from any direct responsibility of the government, granting them their independence and instating a board of governors for each, and led to the relaxation of the curriculum, from the previously-mandated, wholly Classics-based one, to a broader academic span. The Act having distinguished a few old-established schools by the description of "Public school", many other schools hurried to associate themselves by adopting the term, which remains in common use in England to describe independent senior schools.
The act was revised and slightly modified in 1998.
