History and Traditions

BB&N – A Brief History

Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, a coeducational day school in Cambridge, was established in 1974, though its origins date back nearly a century earlier.

BB&N came into existence through the merger of two schools in Cambridge—the Browne & Nichols School, a school for boys founded in 1883 by one-time Harvard classmates George H. Browne and Edgar H. Nichols; and the Buckingham School, established six years later at the corner of Buckingham Street and Buckingham Place by Jeannette Markham, a transplanted Kansan who had come to Cambridge to study at what would later become known as Radcliffe College. Buckingham School (originally Miss Markham’s School) was coeducational at the youngest grades, and for girls only at the higher grades.

The two schools operated independently for decades, but were collaborating on theater productions and music concerts by the 1950s, and started offering joint classes in 1970. The formal merger that created Buckingham Browne & Nichols became effective on New Year’s Day, 1974.

BB&N today offers a premier educational experience to boys and girls in grades Beginner (pre-K) though 12 on three campuses united in the singular pursuit of educational excellence.

School Traditions

A variety of school traditions mark the BB&N calendar—some old, some new, some celebrated by one school or another, and some celebrated by the entire school community.