Hurstpierpoint College

Hurstpierpoint College — known to alumni as "Hurst" — was founded in 1849 by Canon Nathaniel Woodard as the second school of what became the Woodard Corporation, the Anglican schools network founded to provide affordable Christian education to the rising middle classes of nineteenth-century England. It opened originally as St John's Middle School at Shoreham in 1849; its first headmaster was Edward Clarke Lowe, who had worked with Woodard at Lancing College. The school moved to Mansion House in Hurstpierpoint and, on 21 June 1853, to its present site on a rise above the Sussex Weald, just north of Hurstpierpoint village. The Tudor-Gothic main buildings were intended to evoke the architectural character of medieval Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and remain in active use.

Hurstpierpoint today is a co-educational HMC day and boarding school of around 1,337 pupils aged 4-18, organised across the Pre-Prep, the Prep School, the Senior School and the Sixth Form. The Principal since 2023 is Dominic Mott, previously Deputy Head at Stowe. The school operates thirteen houses including full boarding and weekly boarding provision.

A quirky piece of railway history binds the school to British transport heritage: in 1934 the Southern Railway named one of its forty Class V "Schools Class" locomotives — Engine 918 — "Hurstpierpoint" after the school. The Schools Class were specifically named after prominent English public schools, and 'Hurstpierpoint' served on the line from 1934 until its withdrawal in 1961. The original nameplate is now displayed in the school's Science Block.

The Reverend William Awdry, headmaster of the school from 1873 to 1879, has a particular cultural significance: his son was the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine. Wilbert Awdry's earliest railway memories included watching trains pass the Hurstpierpoint estate as a child. The school's broader alumni list includes a substantial cohort of Anglican clergy and bishops — reflecting Canon Woodard's original Anglican-foundation mission — and senior figures across English law, the armed forces and the civil service. The Woodard Corporation continues to provide significant bursary support.