Royal Russell School

Royal Russell School was founded in 1853 by the Russell family — a London Russia-trading merchant dynasty — as a school for the orphaned and impoverished sons of British merchants who had died abroad on commercial expeditions. The school received royal patronage and the use of the title "Royal" through its early association with senior figures in the British Russia trade. From this commercial-orphanage foundation it evolved through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a conventional fee-paying HMC day and boarding school. It is today co-educational, ages 3-19, with around 1,225 pupils on a 100-acre rural campus at Ballards in Shirley, on the southern edge of the London Borough of Croydon — one of the largest school campuses in Greater London. The Headmaster is Chris J. Hutchinson.

Royal Russell is a member of the HMC, the BSA and the Round Square network, an international group of around 200 schools across 50 countries committed to character-development and internationalism. The school offers both A-Levels and the International Baccalaureate Diploma in the sixth form. Boarding is structured across nine houses with vivid names — Madden, Cambridge, Oxford, St Andrews, Keable, Hollenden, Buchanan, Reade, Queens and Latessa.

Royal Russell's modern alumni list spans entertainment and sport. The actor Martin Clunes OBE — Gary in Men Behaving Badly and the title role in Doc Martin — was a pupil in the 1970s. The singer Elly Jackson, lead vocalist of the Brit Award-winning electronic duo La Roux (In for the Kill, Bulletproof, Quicksand), is an old Russellian. The Torchwood and Absolutely Fabulous actress Naoko Mori was also a pupil. Recent sports alumni include the Chelsea FC and England U21 forward Tyrique George; and the Wales international footballer Rhys Norrington-Davies. In public life, the Conservative MP and government minister Mims Davies is also an old Russellian.

The Round Square commitment shapes a substantial international and outdoor-education programme, including expeditions, student-exchange links across Asia, the Americas and Africa, and a strong CCF and Duke of Edinburgh Award tradition. Royal Russell operates a substantial bursary programme that continues the school's original 1853 orphanage-foundation commitment to children of mercantile families in need.