The Coborn school was first housed in a site east of Bow Church, quickly moving toward Bow Bridge. In 1814 the school moved to a site which later became part of the Bryant and May match factory. In 1873 a new scheme was prepared under the Endowed Schools Act to reorganize the school to give secondary education to 200 boys and 200 girls and receive more public funding. The main new site, soon extended, assumed the temporary name of Stepney Grammar School, off Tredegar Square in the west of Bow (its closest station was Mile End and high street was Mile End Road). The Coborn name most frequently (as shared officially) referred to the girls school at 86 Bow Road which closed in 1886 until amalgamation with the Coopers' foundation (see below). The Coopers' Boys' School in the transitional period took over the Tredegar Square building. Miss Jessie Winifred Holland, headmistress 1903–10, married Sir William Foster, historian of the Coopers' Company and its schools; she too wrote a history, but of Coborn School.