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The term public school is not and cannot be applied to most of the several thousand independent schools in the UK. Many of them are not open to all members of the public. Most of them do not use that term to refer to themselves. Whilst some schools openly declare themselves to be public schools, (possibly to attract foreign students), others prefer to be called independent schools.
The term 'public' (first adopted by Eton) refers to the fact that the school is open to the paying public, as opposed to, for example, a religious school open only to members of a certain church, and in contrast to private education at home (usually only practical for the very wealthy who could afford tutors).
Prior to the Clarendon Commission, a Royal Commission that investigated the public school system in England between 1861 and 1864, there was no clear definition of a public school. The commission investigated nine of the more established schools: the day schools (St Paul's and the Merchant Taylors') and seven boarding schools (Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Westminster and Winchester). A report published by the commission formed the basis of the 1868 Public Schools Act.
The Public Schools Yearbook, published in 1889, named the following 25 boarding schools:
Amongst the oldest independent schools in the UK are (chronologically):
In British usage, a government-run school (which would be called a 'public school' in other areas, such as the United States) is called a state school.