Stamford School

Stamford School was founded in 1532 by William Radcliffe under royal charter from Henry VIII. The school has occupied its present site in the centre of Stamford, Lincolnshire — a designated Conservation Area praised by John Betjeman as "the finest stone town in England" — for almost five centuries. Stamford merged operationally with the former Stamford High School for Girls and the co-educational Stamford Junior School in 2000 to form the Stamford Endowed Schools (SES); from September 2023 the merged Senior School became fully co-educational, ending more than 490 years as a boys-only foundation. Today the school educates around 1,120 pupils aged 11-18 on a 60-acre campus across 54 buildings. The Headmaster from August 2025 is Chris Seal.

Stamford is a member of the HMC and the BSA. The school's modern alumni list reflects strong musical and military traditions. Sir Malcolm Sargent — universally known as "Flash Harry" for his sartorial elegance, and the chief conductor of the BBC Promenade Concerts from 1948 to 1966 — was a Stamford pupil; the school maintains the Malcolm Sargent Memorial Concert Hall in his honour. General Sir Mike Jackson, who served as Chief of the General Staff of the British Army (2003-06) and commanded NATO ground forces during the Kosovo intervention, was educated at Stamford in the 1950s.

In cricket: Dean Headley, the England Test cricketer of the 1990s and son of the West Indian great George Headley, attended Stamford; the contemporary cricketer Joey Evison (Notts and Hampshire) is a more recent alumnus. In contemporary acting: George Robinson, who plays Isaac Goodwin in Netflix's Sex Education, is a recent Stamford pupil. The cartoonist and humorist Gerard Hoffnung — known for his Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra Concerts and his Punch contributions — also attended Stamford. The school operates a substantial bursary programme via the Stamford Endowed Schools Foundation.