The foundation's roots go back to 1911, when Leila Rendel founded a day nursery in the St Pancras district of London which catered to the children of women working in a nearby factory.

Rendel named the community after the children's book illustrator Randolph Caldecott whose pictures adorned the walls of the St Pancras nursery.

The Caldecott Comminuty began its life in 1911 when Leila Rendel and her friend Phyllis Potter set up their own nursery school based on the progressive ideas of Margaret McMillan and Leila's aunt Edith Rendel who was an active critic of the English Poor Laws, a pioneer girls' club leader and a militant suffragist.

Their school was located at Cartwright Gardens in St Pancras and mainly catered to the children of women working in a nearby matchbox factory.

An admirer of Randolph Caldecott's children's book illustrations, Rendel named the nursery school in his honour and adorned its walls with a frieze of his pictures.

[1][2][2] The continued German bombing of London and subsequent condemnation of the St Pancras building by the local council in 1917 led the Caldecott Community to move with its teachers and children to Charlton Court, a large country house near Maidstone.

[3] When the lease on Charlton Court expired in 1924, the school moved to another country house in Goffs Oak, a village in Hertfordshire and remained there for the next eight years.

During its time there the community increasingly took in distressed and vulnerable children whose family lives had been disrupted by death, illness, and divorce.

[5][2][6] In 1947 the community moved to Mersham-le-Hatch, a large country house designed by Robert Adam surrounded by parkland.

That same year with a grant from the Nuffield Trust, Rendel set up the first experimental reception centre in England to assess the most appropriate placement for children who had been taken into care.