The School owes its foundation to Nicholas Gibson, a City merchant and Prime Warden of the Grocers' Company, who built, in 1536, an Almshouse and a School in Ratcliff, a hamlet in Stepney in East London, which passed to the Coopers' Company on the death of his widow.

The Company established a Girls' Secondary School in the Mile End Road in 1878 and, in 1891, under the governing terms of the Stepney & Bow Educational Foundation this was merged with the Prisca Coborn School - founded in Bow in 1701 and said to be the first School in England to offer places for girls. Also in 1891 the Boys' School moved from Ratcliff to join the Coborn Boys at Tredegar Square, the Coopers' Girls' School being renamed 'The Coborn School' and moving, in 1898, to new buildings in the Bow Road. In May 1970 the Foundation Stone of a new school, formed by the merging of the two existing schools and to be known as the Coopers' Company & Coborn School, was laid at a site in St. Mary's Lane, Upminster and the School was officially opened by the Lord Mayor of London in September 1974.

It is a six-form entry, voluntary aided, co-educational School of some 1200 pupils with a very high academic and sporting record. The Company appoints 6 governors to the Board of the School and 7 to the Board of the Coopers' Co. & Coborn Educational Foundation.



The Coopers' Company and Coborn School Web Site