John Percival was the first headmaster of Clifton College, where he made his reputation as a great educator. In his 17 years at Clifton numbers rose to 680. He accepted the presidency of Trinity College, Oxford, to recover from his years at Clifton. It was from Trinity that he went to Rugby to become headmaster of Rugby School before becoming Bishop of Hereford.

Clifton College is a public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike most contemporary public schools, it emphasised science rather than classics in the curriculum, and was less concerned with social elitism, for example by admitting day-boys on equal terms and providing a dedicated boarding house for Jewish boys, called Polack's House. Having linked its General Studies classes with Badminton School, it admitted girls to every year group in 1987, and was the first of the traditional boys' public schools to become fully coeducational. Polack's House closed in 2005 but a scholarship fund open to Jewish candidates still exists. Clifton College is one of the original 26 English public schools as defined by the Public Schools Yearbook of 1889.