c. 118) was enacted by the British Parliament to reform and regulate seven leading English boys' boarding schools, most of which had grown out of ancient charity schools for the education of a certain number of poor scholars, but were by then, as they are today, also educating many sons of the English upper and upper-middle classes on a fee-paying basis.

The preamble describes "An Act to make further Provision for the good Government and Extension of certain Public Schools in England."

The Act followed the report of the Clarendon Commission, a Royal Commission set up to inquire into nine leading schools, which sat from 1861 to 1864 and investigated conditions and abuses which had grown up over the centuries at these originally charity schools.

It also freed them of their obligations under their founding charters to educate "Foundation Scholars", i.e. scholarship boys paying nominal or no fees.

[9] The act led to development of the schools away from the traditional exclusively classics-based curriculum taught by clergymen, to a somewhat broader scope of studies.