The Foundation of the College

Worksop College was founded as St Cuthbert's College in 1890 by Canon Nathaniel Woodard (1811–91). Priest and educational visionary, Woodard instituted the Woodard Corporation in 1848 after becoming aware that, while the Church provided schooling for poor families, the education of the ‘trade classes’ was seriously neglected. He sought to provide a ‘good and complete education for the middle classes at such a charge as will make it available for the most of them’. Having studied at Oxford, Woodard found himself strongly drawn to the growing Tractarian Movement and maintained Anglo-Catholic sympathies throughout his life; at the heart of his schools was a Christian education with an emphasis on High Anglican worship. Woodard had already developed schools in the South East and Midlands when he proposed to found a school to serve the religious and educational needs of the middle classes in more easterly regions. It was to be the final school founded during Woodard's lifetime.

A number of sites were discussed but the matter was settled when the 7th Duke of Newcastle donated 100 acres of land, part of the Clumber estate situated in the Dukeries of North Nottinghamshire on the edge of Sherwood Forest, which he had recently taken over.