Houghton Regis Free School

The 'Free' School was founded by Thomas Whitehead in 1654 and built on the village green.

Thomas Whitehead stipulated that the school be made up of 15 boys from poor families in Houghton and 5 boys from poor families in nearby hamlets. In 1856 the final remaining distant trustee of the Thomas Whitehead Free School on the Green relinquished trusteeship to a set of new local people. In 1865 the school was handed over by the Rev Jacson to ‘six substantial inhabitants’ per the will of Thomas Whitehead.

In 1875 the Free School on the Green moved to the National School building. In 1876 the National School and Whitehead's Free School merges and becomes Whitehead's Free Endowed School. It then becomes a Public Elementary School in 1903, a VC County Primary in 1946, later changing name to Thomas Whitehead and becoming a Lower School on comprehensive reorganisation with a later further name change.