BOLTON School Boys’ Division has been identified as being among the top 100 schools for producing some of the country’s top figures.

The school has been highlighted in an influential report for the numbers of former pupils who are part of the professional elite.

The report was compiled the Sutton Trust which looked at the educational backgrounds of nearly 8,000 people.

Bolton School Boys’ Division — which appeared in the same table as Eton College — produced 12 leading figures.

Top was Eton which produced 330.

Philip Britton, headmaster of the boys’ division, said: “It is uplifting to see how Old Boys attending Bolton School have done well for themselves, often built on the attitudes they learned at school.

“When I meet them it always strikes me that their interests are often the same now as those that are on their school reports. It is good for Bolton School and for Bolton that we have this input into national life.”

He added: “It is not just Old Boys either — Baroness Trish Morris also sits in the House of Lords and Dame Janet Smith is a prominent judge.”

The Sutton Trust was founded in 1997 to improve “social mobility” and address educational disadvantage.

Its report found that although independent schools account for only seven per cent of all school places, 44 per cent of leading people went to a private school and only 21 per cent to comprehensives and other state schools.

Mr Britton said: “The Sutton Trust Report has in some quarters been hailed as presenting facts that in some way are bad.

“I would suggest there can be few better examples of social mobility than the influence of these Bolton boys in national life.

“It is striking so many went through the school from ordinary backgrounds and that is why we strive to continuously build our bursary funds to maintain open access to the school for a good cross section of society.”