College History

The original grammar school was founded by the Royal Charter of King James 1 in 1604, in the Chantry House next to St Mary's church. There are suggestions of Grammar School in medieval Henley, prior to the Reformation, with the Bridgeman’s accounts of 1420 mentioning teaching in the Chantry House. The first school began operating in 1604, and five years later Dame Elizabeth Periam established another school within the Chantry House (pictured right) ‘for the education in writing, reading, and casting accounts, clothing, and apprenticing twenty poor boys of the said town’. In 1778 the two schools were amalgamated and became the ‘United Charity Schools of Henley’, and moved premises from the Chantry House to Hart Street, then to Northfield End. Despite the amalgamation, the two schools had remained fairly separate, so in 1892 the Henley Grammar School was formed.

In 1928 the school moved premises again to Rotherfield Court (now known as Rotherfield). The building was fitted out as a modern secondary school and began accepting girls for the first time. Due to the development of local schools Chiltern Edge, Langtree and Gillotts, there was less demand for the school to educate younger pupils, so in 1974 the school became King James’ Sixth Form College.
By this time, the South Oxfordshire Technical College was well established in Henley, and students were able to study at both Colleges owing to a common timetable adopted by the two institutions. By the eighties, there was increasing support for a merger, and finally in 1987 The Henley College, Oxfordshire’s first tertiary college, was formed.