[2] In the school's early decades it had an apostrophe in its name, but this was expunged by a new head master, Hampton Gervis, in the spring term of 1940.

He then rented rooms in the former Rottingdean Manor House and employed an assistant schoolmaster to expand his school.

From 1863 a Mr Hewitt ran Field House School on the site; there Ralph Vaughan Williams and the later Earl Jellicoe were educated.

Lang in turn sold an interest in the school to his successor, Hampton Gervis, in 1940; one of the other masters, Eric Webber, also had a financial share in the business.

[3] Sir Wilfred Thesiger, who attended the school from 1919 to 1923, later recalled his treatment by Lang: "The headmaster was a sadist.

He had certain victims, my brother and myself among them, and on the slightest excuse, such as making a noise in the passage or not putting our shoes away properly, he beat us with a whip with a red lash.

Despite strenuous efforts by the parents of the children to keep it open,[5][7] and an offer made by Hurstpierpoint College to acquire it and use it as a junior department,[8] the school finally closed on 7 July 2013.

[citation needed] Charles Stanford founded the school as St Aubyn's, although his reason for choosing that name is not known.

The change coincided with the arrival of a new headmaster, Hampton Gervis, and also with the school's evacuation from Rottingdean soon after the end of the so-called Phoney War, at the time of the Battle of Britain over southern England.

[citation needed] However, a broadcast by ITV on 19 February 2018[15] mentions the school in the light of decades of sexual abuse by teachers.