King's College, Taunton

For other uses, see King's College.

King's College is a British coeducational, secondary boarding school in Taunton, Somerset, England. It is a private boarding school of 420 students aged 13-18, including about 302 boarders. The head of the school is currently Christopher Ramsay, who completes his fourth academic year in the summer of 2006.

Kings College Taunton has a history of over 125 years.

Benjamin Disraeli was once running for MP in Taunton, and any of his early political appearances took place on what is currently the school's 1stXI cricket pitch.

After the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie I fled in exile to Bath. During his stay in the UK many of his younger children went to Kings College, and the Emperor himself distributed the awards at the end of every academic year. Many of the boarding houses still hold trophies related to now defunct activities on which is it inscribed that that particular prize was handed out by Haile Selassie. A portrait of the Emperor once hung in the main school building.

Before the General Election in 1964, the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, addressed a public meeting in Big School.

The School became co-ed in the very early 1970s, it currently has seven boarding houses: Bishop Fox, King Alfred, Woodard (After Nathaniel Woodard) Tuckwell, Meynell, Taylor and Carpenter. All these houses, plus Neates, which no longer exists, were male boarding houses until the early 1970s, where Meynell and Taylor became female boarding houses. Carpenter became a female boarding house in the mid 1990s.

In July 2006, two members of staff accompanied a small group of pupils who had recently left the school on a charity trip to India to construct a house for an Indian family. In 2007 the school choir took part in Songs of Praise and came 1st, and in the same year the senior rugby team were victorious in the The National Schools 7's.

Notable alumni

• Geoffrey Cox QC - Member of Parliament
• Tom Voyce - Rugby player[1]
• Dominic Wood - Television presenter on CBBC
• Juno Temple - Actress in the movie Notes on a Scandal and upcoming movie Atonement
• Roger Twose - Cricket player for the Black Caps

External links

• Debretts review of school
• Profile of school at Woodward Schools
• Profile at Hobsons UK Boarding Schools