Aldgate Ward School

The City of London was divided into wards for the purpose of government as early as Norman times. The wards had responsibility to keep the peace, supervise trade and oversee sanitation, and each ward has the right to elect an Alderman and Commoners to sit in the Court of Common Council of the Corporation of London. Aldgate Ward is the easternmost of the City of London's wards within the City walls. The ward is based around one of the four original gates in the City wall, built between 1108 and 1147.

The school was established for boys and girls in the Ward in circa 1717, with buildings between Duke Street and Mitre Street. Following the Education Act of 1902 it decided in 1903 to merge with the Sir John Cass Foundation, transferring its property to the Foundation, on the condition that poor children of the ward had preferential access to the Foundation's technical college.