The Xaverian Brothers, a congregation dedicated to the Catholic education of boys, were founded in Belgium in 1839 and first came to England in May of 1848. They taught first at St. Marie's, Bury, Lancashire. In May of 1850 they moved to Manchester and took charge of St. Augustine's School. Early in 1857 they accepted responsibility for St. John's Cathedral School in Salford and in May of 1859 opened St. Chad's School in Manchester. They began teaching in the Catholic Collegiate Institute in Manchester in August of 1862.

They began to work in London in September of 1860, worked at St. Mary's Training College, Hammersmith, starting in 1861, at St. Joseph School, Battersea, in March of 1874, and at St. Joseph's Commercial School, Queen's Square, in May of 1882.

They began their work in Preston with the Xaverian Brothers Select School in December of 1860, began to operate St. Ignatius Elementary Day School there in 1876, and started teaching at St. Walburges starting in January of 1878.

Their work with orphans started with a house in Hastings in May of 1863. In 1868 they moved to a larger building in Mayfield, and after 1874 accepted regular boarding students as well as orphans. They taught for several years (1874-1881) at St. Marie's, Little Bolton, as well.

Their twentieth-century foundations include Xaverian College in Brighton (Easter 1909), their Juniorate in Rottingdean (April 1918), St. Francis Xavier School in Deeping St. James (March 1919), St. Martin's School for day pupils (1932), and the School of St. Edward the Confessor, a preparatory boarding school in Waldron, Foxhunt Manor (September 1936).

Later in the twentieth century the number of brothers declined. In 1977 England was redefined as a region rather than a province of the Xaverian Brothers. In 2003 the Xaverian Brothers withdrew from their remaining English missions.