Alleyn's School
school in Southwark, UK
Alleyn's School is a 4–18 co-educational, public, day school and sixth form in Dulwich, London, England. It is a registered charity and was originally part of Edward Alleyn's College of God's Gift charitable foundation, which also included James Allen's Girls' School (JAGS) and Dulwich College.
It became a public school with the election of its headmaster to the Headmasters' Conference (HMC) in 1929, but, like Oakham School, subsequently operated as a direct grant grammar school from 1958 until the abolition of that status in 1976, after which its governors opted for outright independence and co-education.
It is very strong academically and usually outperforms its sister school Dulwich College at both GCSE and A-Level.
History
Edward Alleyn
In 1619, Edward Alleyn established his 'College of God's Gift' (the gift of love) accommodating twelve poor brothers and sisters (“pensioners”), plus providing education for a further twelve poor scholars: Alleyn's School is a successor of Edward Alleyn's original foundation, the scholars of which it inherited when it was established as a boys' school in 1882. (Together with Dulwich College, it is also a successor of the original Corporation’s 1842-founded Grammar School.) It still exists as part of a foundation alongside Dulwich College, and JAGS.
For the original College of God's Gift, 24 students had to be chosen from the four parishes with which Edward Alleyn had been connected. Saint Giles, Camberwell (in which Dulwich was situated), Saint Saviour, Southwark (where the Bear Pit stood on Bankside), Saint Botolph, Bishopsgate (where Alleyn was born), and Saint Giles, Cripplegate (home to the Fortune Theatre).
The Lower School
The 1857 Act for confirming a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the College of God's Gift in Dulwich in the County of Surrey, also known as the Dulwich College Act, mandated that the College of God's Gift be wound up, and that “Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift”, its replacement, create an "Upper School", which became Dulwich College, and a "Lower School", which became Alleyn's; both in the further 1882 reorganisation.
Separation from the College of God's Gift
In 1869, the upper school moved away to a new site further south (“The New College”), but the lower school remained at “The Old College” and the old Grammar School buildings until 1887, when it moved to its current site which contained new buildings. The original school location is now the foundation chapel and the offices for the Dulwich Estate, which belongs to the two schools.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alleyn's School” as school in Southwark, UK. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as school in Southwark, UK. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4732213. VIAF identifies the subject as 173015240. The Library of Congress control number is no94002796. Authority coordinates are 51.455, -0.082. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1958, 1976 and 1619.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alleyn's School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.