The Oratory School was founded on 1 May 1859 in Edgbaston, a suburb in Birmingham, "for the education of [Roman Catholic] boys not destined to ecclesiastical estate", meaning not aiming to become priests.

[1] By 1941, the school, based at Caversham Park, was taking boys only between the ages of six and thirteen.

[1] In 1946, The Oratory Prep School re-opened at the Old Ryde, a fine house at Branksome Park, Poole, with 35 boys.

[1] The school moved to its current site in 1969, with sixty acres of grounds, amid open countryside and woodland overlooking the Thames Valley, close to Reading.

The school accepts children of all faiths, but still has close ties with the Roman Catholic church; Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, sits on the Board of Governors, and Cardinal Baum was a member until his death in 2015.