Coopers' Company and Coborn School

The Coopers' Company and Coborn School is a specialist sports college in Upminster, Essex.

The Nicholas Gibson Free School was founded in 1536 by a prominent London citizen who earned his living as a grocer. On his death in 1549 Gibson's wife, Avice, took over the running of the School which could take up to sixty boys. In 1552 she asked the Coopers' Company to undertake the management of the School for her and thus the School included the Company's title in its name. The School was situated in Ratcliffe, now present day Stepney.

Prisca Coborn, the widow of a brewer, established a coeducational school in Bow in 1701 as a result of the terms of her will, published in the year of her death. The School was first housed in a site east of Bow Church, quickly moving to a site between the Church and Bow Bridge. In 1814 the School moved to a site which later became part of the Bryant and May match factory. In 1870 the School moved to a site in Tredegar Square, later to be occupied by the Coopers' Company's Boys' School. In 1891 the two foundations were united and on the boys moving to Tredegar Square, Coborn, now an all-girls school, moved to 86 Bow Road. In 1898 Coborn School was moved to 29-31 Bow Road where it remained until the move to Upminster.

As a result of the amalgamation of the two schools the new site was first occupied at Upminster in 1971 and by 1973 the whole School had moved into its impressive new premises in Upminster.