Brighton College is important in the story of English education. It pioneered the use of separate classrooms, set up the first purpose-built science laboratory, the first gymnasium and invented the school magazine. Later, it fought the legal battle to obtain charitable status for non-profit-making organisations. Here the author investigates not just the school, but also questions the identity of the public school system, how much has changed in the last 150 years, from the controlled life of the schoolboy of 1955 compared with almost unlimited freedom in 1855.