History of St Dunstan’s Educational Foundation

Aschool has been associated with the parish of St Dunstan’s in the East as far back as 1446. As far as we can tell, this school ran, intermittingly, until the early 16th century, and provided an education for girls and boys aged 7-11, in heart of the City of London.

In the Victorian period, and amidst the opportunities of the Industrial Revolution, the church parishioners of St Dunstan’s in the East were confident that they could re-establish a school that would meet the highest educational standards of the day. In 1867, the St Dunstan’s Educational Foundation was established by the parishioners ‘to provide an education to boys and girls in south-east London’ and to create a school capable of accommodating 400 pupils.

From its opening in 1888, St Dunstan’s College set itself apart from other independent schools, both by its innovative technical curriculum and by the determination to be an accessible school, supporting families from a range of different backgrounds and incomes.