This school, for boys of secondary school age, opened on 5 September 1881 on land owned by the City Council on the junction of George Street and New Inn Hall Street in Oxford. Pupils had to pay fees, although free scholarships were also available. As the school grew, plans were made to re-locate the school to a site in North Oxford in the 1920s, but never came to fruition. In 1966 COHS merged with Southfield School on the latter's premises in Glanville Road under the name of Oxford School. This became Oxford Spires Academy in 2011.
The records in the collection, which include foundation documents, pupil and staff registers, headmasters' and school inspectors' reports, minutes, correspondence and financial records, were transferred to the History Centre in several stages between 1949 and 2003 (accessions 147, 4123, 4362, 4680, 4837, 5184, 5226). Some of the documents, particularly those formerly at Oxfordshire Studies in Westgate, had previously been catalogued. A concordance of these former and the new references is included with the hard-copy version of this catalogue.
Catalogued by Mark Priddey, July 2014