Our history

In 1643 Robert Aske, the son of an affluent draper, became a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, eventually becoming its master. On his death, he bequeathed today’s equivalent of over £8 million to be used to buy land at Hoxton in Shoreditch. This was to build almshouses for poor members of the company and set up a school for 20 of their sons.

The boys’ school, known as Aske’s Hospital, was first set up in 1690. It was a far cry from the Habs Boys of today, but without it, we would not be here today. The admission policy was strict. Only children of proven poverty who could already read could join. Once in, students were taught ‘the Rudiments of Grammar’ and ‘to write fair and all manner of needful Arithmetick’. They left at 15, unless first expelled – for example, if they inherited £100 or more, were absent without leave, or found to have lied or sworn.

In 1868, the serving prime minister, Lord Palmerston, set up the Schools Inquiry Commission to examine education provision for the middle classes. This included endowed schools such as Aske’s Hospital. When they encouraged increased provision for girls, the Haberdashers’ Foundation was set up to establish a girls’ school alongside the boys’ school in Hoxton.

Both schools were opened by HRH Prince Arthur of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria, on 5 June 1875. However, by 1874, the new Headmaster, Mr Hinton, was already planning to build a new site with playing fields.

Both schools felt their Hoxton location, having become rather down-at-heel, made the journey to school uncomfortable for the 83% of students who lived outside the local area. Many of the buildings were also in dire need of repair.

The House system was introduced by Mr Hinton in the late nineteenth century. Each one is named after its original Head of House: Calverts, Hendersons, Joblings, Meadows, Russells and Strouts.

The situation at Hoxton meant the two schools had to split from each other. With a new girls’ school opening in Acton in 1901, the boys moved out of the old Hoxton buildings into newer facilities at Westbere Road, Hampstead, in 1903.

There, students were taught Greek and allowed to stay until their 18th birthday. Academic standards improved greatly, and many of the boys went on to become architects, barristers, doctors and engineers.

Then came the wars, in which many Habs students served and fought bravely. 107 died in WW1 and 87 in WWII; their names are immortalised on plaques around the schools.

Appointed in 1946, Headmaster Dr Taylor decided his first task was to plan to move the school from Hampstead to a new site. The school governors began looking to relocate for a second time, as the girls’ school had done.

Dr Taylor had cause to be concerned. A subsequent 1949 report by the Ministry of Education on the boys’ school stated the school hall, gym, art room and library should be enlarged and improved.

Finally, in 1959, the school bought Aldenham House from the BBC. The English country house near Elstree in Hertfordshire also came with 61 acres of land. The boys’ move took place in the summer term of 1961, with the new school opened by the Lord Mayor of London. The inspection report that followed praised every aspect of the facilities and staff.

In 1976, the school became independent following the demise of the direct grant scheme. Improvements, alterations and expansions continued to be made to the Elstree estate.

In 2019, the schools embarked on an exciting new strategy, with a commitment to closer collaboration between our two schools, bringing boys and girls together in A Level teaching sets, through the Habs Diploma and in a range of academic and co-curricular activities. Both schools continue to pride themselves on academic excellence to stretch curious minds, both inside and beyond the classroom.

Alongside this there has been a much stronger focus on preparing our students for the modern world, through broader engagement with the community in our Partnership Programme, the work of the Foundation, a sustained focus on EDI and environmental matters, educational innovation and education in its broadest sense, developing those skills and attributes which our students need to make a profound impact in the world.

We have also invested in our wonderful green campus, with new state-of-the-art teaching facilities, a new Boys’ Pre-Prep School and the significant enhancement of our outdoor spaces, such as The Boulevard in the Girls’ School.

In 2021 our community had to respond to the discovery that Robert Aske had invested a small part of his estate in the Royal African Company, which was involved in the vile trade in enslaved people. It has been difficult to come to terms with the fact that a man who did great good, and whose bequest continues to do great good, was also implicated in one of the great evils of history. This has been a painful process, but one which has brought the whole community together in a deep reflection on who we are, and which has been praised as an example of open and constructive engagement.

In 2023 Mr Sykes became our new Headmaster. Mr Sykes served as Head of Spanish from 2011 to 2014 and then as Deputy Head Academic since April 2020 at Habs. Like his predecessors over the past 330 years, Mr Sykes will leave his own imprint on Habs Boys and write another important page in our history book.

If you have any questions about our history not answered here, please get in touch with our School Archivist.