Ackworth has always been a co-educational, boarding and day school. For over 230 years, they have maintained a passion for teaching and learning. They are proud of their traditions and family values, but equally proud of their innovative approach to co-education.Ackworth is a dynamic and forward-thinking school. They strive to develop resilient individuals who not only think creatively, but also act ethically and with responsibility. They encourage their students to express themselves with confidence, to embody the Quaker value of speaking respectfully to others, but also in a way that is true to themselves and their beliefs.
- Kweku Adoboli (born 1980), investment banker, convicted in the 2011 UBS rogue trader scandal
- Lindsey Fawcett (born 1979), actress known for her role in ITV’s Bad Girls
- Keeley Fawcett (born 1985), actress known for her role as Carrie in the 2004 BBC film Carrie’s War
- Henry Ashby (1846–1908), paediatrician
- Henry Ashworth (1794–1880), cotton master
- John Gilbert Baker (1834–1920), botanist
- Geoffrey Barraclough (1908–1984), historian
- James Bevans (1777-1832) engineer and architect
- Sir Henry Binns (1837–1899), prime minister of Natal, 1897–1899
- Veronica Bird OBE; retired Prisons governor.
- William Arthur Bone (1871–1938), chemist fuel technologist
- Henry Bowman Brady (1835–1891), naturalist and pharmacist
- John Bright (1811–1889), politician
- Basil Bunting (1900–1985), poet
- Eleanor Carpenter (born 1976), psychologist
- Peter Christopherson (1955-2010), musician, video director and designer
- William Marshall Cooper (1833–1921), civil engineer, artist, surveyor and cartographer
- Susanna Corder (1787–1864), educationist and Quaker biographer
- Alfred Darbyshire (1839–1908), architect
- William Darton (1781–1854), publisher
- Philip J Day (born 1959), documentary filmmaker
- Henry Doubleday (1810–1902), starch manufacturer and comfrey cultivator
- William Farrer Ecroyd (1827–1915), worsted manufacturer and politician
- George Edmondson (1798–1863), headmaster of Queenwood Hall
- Thomas Edmondson (1792–1851), inventor of the first railway-ticket printing machine
- Sarah Stickney Ellis (1799–1872), writer and educationist
- James Fearnley (born 1954), musician and member of The Pogues
- Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (1871–1928), heraldist
- Francis Frith (1822–1898), photographer
- Eva Gilpin (1868–1940), founder and headmistress of the Hall School in Weybridge
- Thomas Hancock (1783–1849), physician and epidemiologist
- Dominic Harrison (1998-) Musician. Performing as Yungblud
- Thomas Harvey (1812–1884), chemist and philanthropist
- William Howitt (1792–1879), writer
- Sir Joseph Hutchinson (1902–1988), geneticist and professor of agriculture
- Deborah Layton (born 1953), survivor of the Jonestown Massacre and author of Seductive Poison
- Thomas Lister (1810–1888), poet and naturalist
- William Allen Miller (1817–1870), chemist
- John Howard Nodal (1831–1909), journalist and dialectologist
- Jacob Post (1774–1855), Quaker religious writer
- John Priestman (1805–1866), worsted manufacturer and pacifist
- Jane Procter (1810–1882), headmistress of Polam Hall, Darlington; and temperance campaigner
- Sir James Reckitt (1833–1924), starch, blue and polish manufacturer
- Anna Richardson (1806–1892), philanthropist, abolitionist and pacifist
- Henry Richardson (1806–1885), philanthropist and pacifist
- Elizabeth Robson (1771–1843), Quaker minister
- Sanil Sachar (1992-), Indian author and poet
- John Henry Salter (1862–1942), naturalist and diarist
- Joseph Sams (1784–1860), bookseller and antiquities dealer
- Prof Rudolph Schaffer (1926–2008), eminent developmental psychologist, escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 on the kindertransport. Both of his parents died in concentration camps.
- Jane Smeal (1801-1888), abolitionist
- Sir Arthur Snelling (1914–1996), diplomat
- Joseph Southall (1861–1944), painter and pacifist
- Patric Standford; (1939–2014), musical composer
- Peter Strevens (1922–1989), linguistic scholar
- Henry Tennant (1823–1910), general manager of the North Eastern Railway, 1870–1891
- Kathleen Tillotson (1906–2001), literary scholar
- Thomas Thomasson (1808–1876), cotton master
- Samuel Tuke (1784–1857), philanthropist and asylum reformer
- Benjamin Barron Wiffen (1794–1867), biographer
- Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen (1792–1836), poet and translator
- James Willstrop (born 1983), squash player
- James Wilson (1805–1860), economist, founder of The Economist, politician, and financial member of the Council of India, 1859–1860
- Rosie Winterton (born 1958), former Labour Chief Whip
- Fiona Wood (born 1958), burns-treatment pioneer, Australian of the Year
- Thomas William Worsdell (1838–1916), steam-locomotive engineer
- Wilson Worsdell (1850–1920), railway engineer
