Many former Wellington pupils fought in the trenches during the First World War, a conflict in which 707 of them lost their lives, many volunteering for military service immediately after leaving school.[4] A further 501 former pupils were killed in action in the Second World War.[citation needed]
The school is a member of the Rugby Group of 18 British public schools and is also a member of the G20 Schools group. For the academic year 2022/23, Wellington charged boarders up to £15,030 per term, or £45,090 per annum.[5]
Originally, the school educated sons of deceased officers who had held commissions in the Army. In 1952 a Supplementary Royal Charter extended the privilege of eligibility to the orphan sons of deceased officers of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force. By the 1960s, the school was considering becoming co-educational, but for some years the lack of financial resources prevented it from doing so. The first girls were admitted into the Sixth Form in the 1970s, and the school became fully co-educational in 2005. A recent change to the scheme of reduced fees early in 2006 extended the privilege to the orphan children of deceased servicemen or servicewomen of His Majesty's Armed Forces irrespective of rank, and to the orphan children of persons who, in the sole opinion of the Governors, have died in acts of selfless bravery. However, only a minority of the children at the school now come from military families.
On 6 September 2013, readers of The Week magazine voted Wellington College "The Most Forward-Thinking School in the UK", and four days later Tatler magazine chose Wellington College as the "Best Senior School in Britain", at its Schools Awards evening in London.[7]
The Wellington Academy
Wellington has sponsored the founding of a new independent state school in Wiltshire, The Wellington Academy,[8] which opened in 2009.
The college buildings were designed by John Shaw, Jr., who had previously worked as an architect for Eton College. For its time, the design of the College was unusual compared to the popular form, but Prince Albert, who assisted in choosing the architect, was more interested in Shaw's classical approach, having already seen the architect's design for the old Royal Naval School in New Cross, London.[9] The main buildings were designed in a style loosely termed "French Grand Rococo",.[10] The chapel, notably only half its originally intended size, was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.[11] There have been several modern buildings, the best of which follow Shaw's grand rococo style: for example, the new Nicholson modern foreign-languages building. In 2019 the GWA Performing Arts Centre was opened, housing an auditorium with 900 seats for use by pupils and to raise funds for the Wellington College Arts Fund.[12]
The college was used as a filming location for the Netflix series The Crown as a stand-in for Kensington Palace (designed by Sir Christopher Wren) in seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 first as the home of Princess Margaret and then of Diana, Princess of Wales. One of the college's original mottos Heroum Filii is visible in a scene of the Queen arriving at the palace, and the college's official motto, Virtutis Fortuna Comes, is visible in a scene of the Queen leaving the palace.
In 2022, 84.2% of pupils scored A*-A or 7/6 for their A-Level or IB examinations, with 97.6% scoring A*-B or 7-5 grades. In the same year, 75% of pupils scored 9 or 8 grades in their GCSEs. The school had an average IB score of 41.3 in 2022, the highest recorded in the College's history.[citation needed]
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. (June 2020)
The school has one of only around 20 racquets courts in the UK,[31] one of 27 real tennis courts in the UK and until recently[when?] three Eton Fives courts, now a café bar as part of the sports club.[32]
The school has been the subject of reports on bullying.[33] In response to criticism, in 2006, it introduced 'well-being lessons' to the curriculum, in conjunction with a team at Cambridge University.
In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times newspaper, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents.[34] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.[35]
Mrs Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and were unaware of the change in the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."[36]
Houses
There are 17 houses at Wellington. The majority are composed of boarders with a small number of day pupils also, although two, Wellesley and Raglan, are day-pupil exclusive.[37] Each house is either an 'in-house' or an 'out-house': in-houses are located within the main school buildings and quads while out-houses are located elsewhere on the college grounds. Each house has aspects distinguishing it from other houses, such as its own colours, insignia, and crest (with the crest of each house being incorporated into one of each of the stained glass windows of the college chapel). Each house was named in honour of a significant figure in history, usually although not exclusively figures associated with the Duke of Wellington.
The Orange, Combermere, Hopetoun, and Anglesey were all formerly boys' houses but converted to girls' houses between 2005 and 2011. The Talbot is currently converting from a boys' to girls' house. [38]
The Old Wellingtonian Society
The Old Wellingtonian Society is the alumni society for the college and was founded in 1890. The Old Wellingtonian Society was set up to further the interests of the college and its past and present members, and to keep former pupils in touch with each other and with the school.[39]
