ABSTRACT
Some of the improvement of the preparatory schools was due to the improvement of the status of women in that the relatively emancipated Victorian mother could be instrumental in securing a less harsh regime for the education of her son in his tender years. In 1907, under the pressure of medical advice which advocated a seaside location, the school moved to Eastbourne, where it took over the buildings of new college, a defunct quasi-public school run by Frederick Schreiner which had been a rival to Eastbourne college. With middle class parents increasingly worried about their children’s future (and having fewer of them in consequence) they clamoured for better tuition to meet the demand to enable their children to get to a public school. Some small coaching establishments were indistinguishable from the small rectory schools which ostensibly prepared boys for entry into public schools, and in the course of time they had become preparatory schools.
