A number of articles discussing the historical background to the formation of the College.

• Singleton, Sewell, and the ideal of a school. This explains the events that surrounded their earlier attempt to form a school at Stackallan, near Dublin, in the early 1840s. This institution remained in existence, but both men had seperately (and rather dramatically) broken off all connection with it in 1845-46. There is also a seperate article on the Fellows of St. Columba’s, and a series of newspaper extracts on a scandal in March 1848 involving the expulsion of one of its fellows (March 13th, 15th, 18th).
• The Stonhouse and Bowyer families, and the Radley Hall estate. A history of the estate, the Hall, and the two families who had owned it until the nineteenth century.
• Radley Hall School, 1819-1844 – a school which had occupied the house at Radley some years before Sewell and Singleton took it over. (A copy of one of its examination papers is also available.)
• The servitors – the young servant-choristers.
• Extract from the Oxford Chronicle, 29th May, 1847 – a local response to “this Romanising establishment”.
• Singleton’s prayer at the foundation of Radley College, 9th June, 1847.
• Extract from the Evening Packet, 12th August, 1847. A report on the Parliamentary election campaign of Singleton’s elder brother.
• The ‘Decimals’ – a system for providing every tenth place free of charge to a deserving boy.
• The college organ – installed in April 1848, and at the time the largest pipe organ ever built in Ireland.
• The view from the boys: the opinions of the boys on Singleton’s leadership of the school.