It was opened on 29 September 1865 as a boys' school 'to provide a sound and plain education, on the principles of the Church of England, and on the public school system, for the sons of farmers and others engaged in commercial pursuits'. It grew rapidly and by the 1880s had more than 300 pupils although it declined over the next 30 years and in 1910 numbers dropped to 150.
Cranleigh started to admit girls in the early 1970s and became fully co-educational in 1999. The current headmaster is Martin Reader with former East Housemaster, Simon Bird, as the Deputy Head.
The Good Schools Guide at one time described the school as a "Hugely popular school with loads on offer, improving academia and mega street cred. Ideal for the sporty, energetic, sociable, independent and lovely child."[1]
The school's Trevor Abbott Sports Centre was opened by Sir Richard Branson and the West House was opened by Baroness Greenfield.[2] New building projects have included the extension onto Cubitt House as well as an[3] environmentally friendly Woodland Workshop and a new £10 million Academic Centre named the Emms Centre. Named after David Emms, this was opened by Lord Patten of Barnes in 2009. The building includes new facilities for Science and Modern Languages as well as a lecture theatre.[4] A £2 million renovation of the chapel in 2009 included the installation of a £500,000 Mander organ.[5]
In a 2015 survey,[which?] it was rated as the third best sporting school in the UK.[citation needed] Its teams won the Rosslyn Park National Sevens Tournament consecutively, in both 2016 and 2017. More recently, the team won the plate competition at Rosslyn Park in 2023.
Cranleigh School also has a sister school based in Abu Dhabi which opened in September 2014.[6]
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.(May 2023)
Former pupils of the school may join the Old Cranleighan Society. About 6,500 past pupils are currently members. The Old Cranleighan Sports Club in Thames Ditton in Surrey is owned by the Society.
^"Red 2 – Flight Lieutenant Zane Sennett". Ministry of Defence. Archived from the original on 18 April 2009. Retrieved 23 March 2009. Zane lived in Hong Kong for 20 years but went to boarding school in the UK at Cranleigh School, near Guildford in Surrey. A member of the school's Combined Cadet Force, his passion for flying from all his overseas travel plus visits to airshows encouraged Zane to think about a career with the Royal Air Force.
^"Sam Smith". Rugby Football Union. Archived from the original on 7 May 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
^"WEBB-JONES, James William (1904–1965)". Who's Who, Oxford Index. Oxford University Press. December 2007. Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
^Swift, Peter (2006). Maunsell 4-4-0 Schools Class. Locomotives in detail. Vol. 6. Hersham: Ian Allan. pp. 81, 93. ISBN0-71103-178-9.