Wellington College, Berkshire, the national monument to the Duke of Wellington, is an English public school, which was granted its royal charter in 1853. Its first Master (Headmaster) was Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury. Currently, the college's Visitor is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Currently a co-eductional public school (UK), the College has approximately 800 pupils of the ages between 13–18. Famously, pupils are at Wellington to "learn how to live" and correspondingly the College excels at both academic and leisure activities. Historically, pupils at the school have excelled at Rugby Football, Field Hockey and Cricket.

It is located in a 400 acre (1.6 km²) estate in South East England, in the county of Berkshire, approximately 30 miles (50 km) from Heathrow Airport and close to the railway town of Reading, Berkshire. The grounds of the college are notable in that they contain many unusual ant species, and were frequented by the entomologist Horace Donisthorpe, who collected extensively there. The main buildings were designed by Gilbert Scott and the chapel was designed by John Shaw.

Famous former pupils of the school include the actor Christopher Lee, the motor racing driver James Hunt and the UK Pop Idol winner Will Young. It has been claimed that Jeffrey Archer, who was actually educated at the less prestigious Wellington School, a minor public school in the Somerset town of Wellington, falsely claimed in his youth that he had been to Wellington College.

Common to other public schools including Eton College, Wellington has its own peculiar slang and naming system. This includes ""Grubbies"" for the school shop, ""Tish"" for partition walls between pupil's rooms and ""Bigside"" and ""Turf"" for playing fields.

Tenuous relations exist with the Wellington College in Wellington, New Zealand. Possibly the most famous example was during World War II when Wellington College NZ converted its playing fields into a small farm and sent food over to Wellington College, Berkshire.

External links

• Wellington College website (http://www.wellington-college.berks.sch.uk/)