[1][2] Hazelwood soon became a model for the education of the new middle classes, aiming to give sufficient knowledge and skills to enable a boy to continue self-education throughout a life "most useful to society and most happy to himself".

In his Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys, Hill argued that kindness, instead of corporal punishment, and moral influence, rather than fear, should be to the fore in school discipline.

Hazelwood so impressed Jeremy Bentham that in 1827 a branch of the school was created at Bruce Castle in Tottenham, with Rowland Hill as its head master.

[5] From its beginning Rowland Hill ran the school along radical lines, inspired by his friends Richard Price, Thomas Paine, and Joseph Priestley.

[9] The school taught the sons of Charles Babbage, the computing pioneer, and of many diplomats based in London, especially from the new nations of South America.

[5] The Municipal Borough of Tottenham bought the house and grounds, which were opened to the public as Bruce Castle Park in June 1892.