A parlour boarder is an archaic term for a privileged category of pupil at a boarding school. Parlour boarders are described by a modern historian as paying more than the other pupils, in return for which they got a room of their own.[1] A parlour was a small reception room, from the French "parler", implying a place for quiet conversation; "board" means meals, as in the expression room and board. The term is mostly historic in British English.
In 18th and 19th century England, there were a profusion of small schools, always single-sex, with the number of pupils ranging from fewer than a dozen to a few score, on a much more domestic scale than the so-called public schools such as Eton and Harrow. Many of these small schools were operated on a family basis, often by a married couple (for boys), or by sisters or female friends (for girls). They would accept day pupils, common boarders, and parlour boarders.