It is a prestigous 160-year-old private school in Australia with notable alumni including Rupert Murdoch and Peter Carey, the novelist.
But Geelong Grammar in rural Victoria has now been publicly shamed after it emerged that staff failed to halt child sex abuse that lasted for several decades.
A royal commission into abuse dating back to the Fifties has heard accounts of a chaplain who hypnotised students before assaulting them and of a student expelled after reporting that a staff member touched him.
Robert Llewellyn-Jones, a former pupil and now a psychiatrist in Sydney, told the commission: "In my opinion, the power and prestige of the school served to discourage victims from breaking their silence about the abuse they experienced."
The allegations of cruelty have extended to Timbertop, the school's 325-hectare campus, attended by the Prince of Wales for two terms in 1966 when aged 17.
The environment at Timbertop was described as "brutal" and likened to those on the island in Lord of the Flies.
Just a year after the Prince attended, the campus was the site of various abuse, including multiple rapes by the Rev Norman Smith, a chaplain who has since died. A student, named only as BKU, recalled being raped twice in three days by the Rev Smith.
He said on one occasion there was also a younger boy present. "Reverend Smith chased us around his private quarters. He would try to draw us on his lap so he could fondle us."
He described the school's "punishing culture devoid of pastoral care".
The Prince of Wales has told of his "fond memories" of Timbertop, saying it was rewarding but also "hell".
The commission's hearings continue, with the final report due to be released in Dec 2017.
