OUR HISTORY

Westminster Tutors is one of the oldest tutorial establishments in the country, and we are now celebrating our 90th anniversary. The college was founded in 1934 by the doughty Miss Freeston, who studied Physics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and was one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University. She set up Westminster Tutors when she realised that young women had very little chance of securing a place at Oxford and Cambridge because they lacked access to academic tutors who could help them prepare for the rigorous Oxbridge entrance examinations.

Miss Freeston dedicated herself to Westminster Tutors for over 40 years, making the college a byword for excellence in teaching. AS Byatt, who taught at Westminster Tutors with Penelope Fitzgerald in the 1960s, recalls that ‘the ferocious Miss Freeston created an atmosphere of eccentric precision’, and describes how the two novelists ‘sat together in the small staff room on sagging sofas, amid a rich and pervasive smell of old upholstery and decaying dogs’.

Westminster Tutors takes its name from the fact the college was originally based in Artillery Row, Westminster, and it continued to occupy the same Dickensian premises in Westminster until 1992. By this time teaching had long since been extended to boys, and to delivering A level courses as well as younger students. In 1993 Westminster Tutors became part of the David Game Group, and since then we have occupied premises on the Old Brompton Road in South Kensington. We now accept students aged 16+, and have continued to thrive on our long-standing reputation for providing tuition of the very highest quality.

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