William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of England, and his wife Alice de la Pole established the school and cloistered almshouses from their profits from the East Anglian wool trade in 1437. Alice was the daughter of Thomas Chaucer, Speaker of the House of Commons, and a granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. As lords of the manor, she and her father had both lived at Ewelme Palace which once stood in the village. The author Cynthia Harnett featured the school and church prominently in her children's novel "The Writing on the Hearth". The action in the book is set around the time the school was built. Ewelme School is said to be the oldest school building in the UK still in use as a local authority school.