An old boy network is an informal system in which wealthy men with similar social or educational background help each other in business or personal matters. The term originally referred to social and business connections among former pupils of male-only elite schools, though the term is now also used to refer to any closed system of relationships that restrict opportunities to within the group. The term originated from much of the British upper-class having attended certain fee-charging public schools as boys, thus former pupils are "old boys".
Logo of The Doon School Old Boys' Society
Public school (United Kingdom)
In England and Wales, a public school is a type of fee-charging private school originally for older boys. They are "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession; nor are they run for the profit of a private owner.
The playing fields of Rugby School, 1567, reestablished 1828. The rules of rugby football were codified here in 1845.
View of the old Norman Staircase and scholars, King's School Canterbury, lithograph by William Harvey, 1851
A bird's eye view of Eton College, founded 1440, by David Loggan, published in his Cantabrigia Illustrata of 1690
Cheltenham College, 1841