- Clifton College was founded in 1862 by Dr John Percival, later the Bishop of Hereford, headmaster of Rugby School and chair of the committee that established Somerville Hall, one of the first two women’s colleges at the University of Oxford. Clifton was a boys’ school but became coeducational in 1987.
- The school served as the headquarters of the US Army during the Second World War, when pupils were evacuated to Bude in Cornwall.
- One of the original boarding houses, Polack’s, was created specifically for the use of Jewish boys. Although the house closed in 2007, the school still offers a kosher kitchen, library, and a dedicated prayer room. And the Polack's House Educational Trust awards bursarial support to Jewish pupils.
- Notable former pupils include Field Marshal Douglas Haig and eight holders of the Victoria Cross, plus the actors Sir Michael Redgrave and John Cleese, and the computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI”, who won the Nobel prize for physics in 2024.
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