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Cheltenham College is a co-educational independent school, located in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Regarded today as one of the major public schools of the Victorian period, it was opened in July 1841. A Church of England foundation, it is known for its classical, military and sporting traditions, and currently has 610 pupils.
Two Cheltenham residents, G.S. Harcourt and J.S. Iredell, founded Cheltenham College in 1841 to educate the sons of gentlemen. It originally opened in three houses along Bays Hill Terrace in the centre of the town.
Within two years it had moved to its present site—with Boyne House as the first College Boarding House—and soon became known simply as Cheltenham College. Taking both boarding and day boys, it was originally divided into Classical and Military sides until the mid-twentieth century. The 1893 book Great Public Schools by E. S. Skirving, S. R. James, and Henry Churchill Maxwell Lyte contained a chapter on each of what they considered England's ten greatest public schools; it included a chapter on Cheltenham College. It is now an independent fee paying school, governed by Cheltenham College Council. A few girls were admitted in 1969 and then in 1981 when the first girls’ house opened, the Sixth Form became fully co educational. In 1998, girls were admitted to all other years, making the College fully co-educational.