Haberdashers' Boys' School

Haberdashers' Boys' School — historically known as Haberdashers' Aske's School and informally as "Habs" — was founded in 1690 under the will of Robert Aske, a wealthy member of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, one of the City of London's twelve great livery companies. Aske's endowment funded a hospital and a free school for twenty boys in Hoxton; over three centuries the school grew, moved, and refounded itself as one of the leading north-London independent day schools. Since 1961 it has occupied a 100-acre campus on Aldenham Road in Elstree, Hertfordshire, with the sister Haberdashers' Girls' School on an adjacent site. The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers remains the school's trustee.

The school today is HMC-affiliated, boys-only, and educates around 1,095 pupils aged 4-18 across an integrated Pre-Prep, Prep and Senior School. It is consistently in the top tier of London independent schools for academic outcomes — A-Level results typically place around 75-80% of grades at A* and A, and Oxbridge offers run to 25-30% of each sixth-form cohort. The Executive Principal is Gus Lock; the Headmaster of the senior school is Robert Sykes. The chairman of governors is Simon Cartmell.

Habs is unusually famous for its concentration of British comedic and creative alumni. Sacha Baron Cohen, the BAFTA-winning creator and performer of Borat, Ali G and Brüno, was a pupil, as was the comedian and Little Britain co-creator Matt Lucas. The writer and presenter David Baddiel attended around the same time, as did the broadcaster Nick Hancock. The playwright Sir David Hare (Plenty, Skylight) is also an old Aldenham Haberdashers' pupil.

Outside the arts, the alumni list runs through public life and exploration: the former Foreign Secretary and Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe; Paul, Baron Boateng, the first black UK Cabinet minister; Andrew, Baron Adonis, the architect of the academies programme and former Transport Secretary; the art critic Brian Sewell; and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the polar explorer described by the Guinness Book of Records as "the world's greatest living explorer."