Charterhouse is one of the great historic schools of England and amongst the most beautiful. The founder, Thomas Sutton, held high public office and, through shrewd investment, became one of the wealthiest people in Jacobean England. In 1611, the year of his death, Sutton made provision for the establishment of a hospital for pensioners and a school for boys, housed in a former Carthusian monastery near Smithfield in London. The School moved out of London in June 1872 to new premises just outside Godalming, but the pensioners remain at the London Charterhouse https://thecharterhouse.org/ .
Charterhouse School Archive (in Godalming) contains the records of the School's activities and administration since 1872. Some registers, printed annual form lists and related documents for earlier years in the nineteenth century were transferred when the School moved from London, and a few papers, letters and albums relating to the period before the move have been given by former masters and pupils. Otherwise most earlier records of Thomas Sutton's 1611 foundation, including scholars, are held in the London Metropolitan Archive.
The archive is available to the school community as an educational and administrative resource, and we also welcome research enquiries from the general public.
The following Charterhouse Archive material is now available online:
- The Carthusian magazine 1872-2021
- The Greyfriar magazine 1884-1936
- Scrapbooks of Charterhouse life 1863-1903, compiled by Annie Marion, wife of Headmaster William Haig Brown.
- The OC magazine 2008 - 2016
- Newssheets 1989 - 2006
- Charterhouse War Memorials
- The Charterhouse Registers of Alumni 1769-1975
- School photographs 1868-1939
- Glass slides of school life, the London Charterhouse and Charterhouse in Southwark.
- Assembly Order Books 1613 - 1982
- History of Charterhouse by A H Tod
- Whole School Photographs
- From a New Angle: Reminiscences of Charterhouse 1880-1945 by W Veale
For further information or to arrange a visit, please contact The Archivist, Catherine Smith, +44 (0) 1483 291604, archive@charterhouse.org.uk.
This website is currently password-protected. To request access, please email archive@charterhouse.org.uk stating your relationship to Charterhouse, or your interest or subject of research.