[5] In his Will of 1814, John Matravers left £1,000 for educational purposes, of which £500 was to found a charity school for boys and girls living in the town of Westbury to be taught according to Joseph Lancaster's plan.

By 1833, the school was teaching English, arithmetic, geography, and geometry to about two hundred children, for each of whom a charge of a penny a week was made.

[1] At that time, "Matravers's School" was one of the largest and most advanced in Wiltshire for the children of working people.

In 1930 the school was enlarged again to take in children aged over eleven from Heywood, Chapmanslade, Corsley, Dilton Marsh, Bratton, Edington, and Erlestoke.

In February 2015 it was reported that the school had told the parents of special needs pupils to keep them at home during an Ofsted standards inspection.