Shiplake College - History

History

Shiplake College was founded in 1959 by Alexander and Eunice Everett. The land on which the school now stands was bought by Robert Harrison in 1888 and the original buildings date from 1890. The main building, which houses Skipwith House and the Great Hall, was built as a private residence for the Harrison family. The house was sold in 1925 and was at first a private home to Lord Wargrave and then a prep school, before being sold to the BBC in 1941. Initially the BBC used Shiplake Court as a storage facility until in 1943 the BBC Monitoring Service moved to Caversham and the house became a hostel for BBC staff. The BBC closed the hostel in 1953 and the house remained largely unused until the arrival of the Everetts in 1958. The College now stands in 45 acres of land on the banks of the Thames. In late 1958 the Everetts purchased Shiplake Court with the intention of founding a school which duly opened as Shiplake College on May 1, 1959. In 1963, John Eggar, a Derbyshire cricketer who had been a housemaster at Repton School, became headmaster. By the time he retired in 1979, numbers had increased to 300.