Pulteney Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational day school. Founded in 1847 by members of the Anglican Church, it is the second oldest independent school in South Australia. It is located on South Terrace in Adelaide.

In May 1847, some citizens of Adelaide met to discuss the establishment of a new school in the city. Twelve months later, on 29 May 1848, Pulteney Street School was opened at a newly constructed 30 by 60 feet (9 by 18 m) building at the corner of Pulteney and Flinders streets. Although established in the Anglican tradition, which continues to this day, it provided from the beginning an education for students of all religious denominations.

Operating 10 months after St Peter's College was founded, the Pulteney Street School was aimed at a broader demographic, reflected in a monthly charge of 2 shillings and 6 pence for each pupil, considered to be "a rate which the poorest can surely afford to pay for the education of their children". The school had 50 pupils by the end of its first week and 270 by Christmas; within two years the average attendance had reached 350. From an early stage, technical subjects were taught to prepare boys for a trade. The senior class had a wide syllabus: writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, mapping, linear drawing, mental arithmetic, geometry, dictation, spelling, reading, history, and "the prophecies". It advertised, four years later, that "The children are taught a superior commercial education, and have the use of the globes and maps. The girls are taught needlework, &c., and are separated from the boys' school. The pupils' fee is three shillings per month, paid in advance, with all materials found."

The inaugural headmaster, the Reverend Edmund King Miller, served in very difficult circumstances: when about 100 children had been admitted he applied to the trustees for an assistant, a request that was refused on the ground that there was a debt on the building they wished to liquidate. Emma Mitchell joined later in the year, mainly to take charge of the separate education of girls; but eventually an assistant for Miller, a William Pepper, was engaged. Miller remained on relatively poor terms with his trustees, largely owing to their failure to recognise the magnitude of the workload that fell on him, including his church work. He resigned in 1850.

In 1852 the school became Pulteney Street Central Schools, when its trustees accepted the curriculum, inspections and examinations of the Board of Education, and its teachers' salaries were supplemented by the State. Miller was succeeded by several headmasters of shorter duration (W. A. Cawthorne 1852–1855; R. C. Mitton 1855–1857 for example), and between appointments the school operated for several years without one. Coincident with the appointment of Cawthorne, a Miss Bridgeman was made governess of the girls' school. In 1853 she was replaced by Miss (Grace) Light.

In 1855 a great drift away from government schools took place, perhaps associated with the exodus to the Victorian goldfields and consequent economic downturn in Adelaide. After the December 1856 examinations, the school went into suspension following a mass removal from State schools of boys seeking paid employment. This coincided with the Legislative Council cutting funds for teachers' stipends. The girls' school closed around this time; in 1858 Light founded her own school in the Trinity Church schoolroom. It has been asserted that the school was renamed "Pulteney Street Central School" in the period when only the boys' school was operating.

In 1860 St Paul's Church was built in the school grounds, closer to the street corner.

In late 1862, under the new headmaster William Samuel Moore, the school was reestablished as "Pulteney Street Central Schools", with classes for girls, and in the 1870s, 74 girls were enrolled out of a total of 270. But female enrolments again ceased in 1884, when its name reverted to "Pulteney Street School". It did not again become co-educational until 1999.