The building now known as St Oswald’s was originally called Petersfield House. While its exact age is uncertain, the documented history of the building dates back to the mid-19th century.
Shortly after marrying in 1839, James Wheatley and his wife Charlotte (née Gates) began running a school from the property. Their lives were marked by difficulty—James faced time in jail and periods of unpaid rent. A fire at the back of Petersfield House reportedly destroyed the original Title Deeds. This incident occurred shortly before James was admitted to the Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, where he died on May 3rd, 1878. Charlotte, who had served as headmistress, passed away less than a year later. Their only surviving child, James Wheatley Jr., inherited the property, bringing an end to its time as a school.
It’s unclear if James Jr. ever lived at Petersfield House, but records show he leased it to tenants, including Isabella D. Meiklam in 1905 and, before her, Miss Emily Challen. James Jr. died in 1906, leaving the property to Midhurst Church School, which auctioned it at The Angel. It was purchased for £450 by John Mudge Furneaux, a solicitor for Midhurst Council. He later sold it in 1912 for £600, following the expiration of the protected lease.
The buyer was John Charles Holland (b. 1866), a registered dentist who trained at the University of Edinburgh. He had been practising just across the road at York House. Holland moved both his family and dental practice into Petersfield House and renamed it St Oswald’s after the church in Oswestry, Shropshire, where he and his wife Kate Elizabeth (née Hayward) had married in 1895. Their fifth and final child was born in the house in 1915.
After suffering a stroke in 1931, Holland sold St Oswald’s to Charles Pearse Crodacott Sargent, a dental surgeon born in London in 1886. Sargent had served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and practised dentistry in Aldwick Road, Bognor Regis. His first wife, Winifred (who worked as his dental nurse), died in 1941. He later married her sister, Dorothy, a teacher. Charles owned St Oswald’s for nearly three decades before selling it to John Gilbert “Gil” Richards in 1959.
We know that Gil worked as a dentist at St Oswald’s before selling the goodwill of the business to a dentist called Rex Pitt, while retained ownership of the property. In 1982, dentist Mark Thomas Coppen purchased the goodwill from Rex Pitt, and in 1987, he acquired the building from Gil.
Since then, Mark has expanded the practice across all three floors, offering four modern surgeries and two waiting rooms. In 2020, Mark went into partnership with his son, Edward Coppen. Together, they converted an outbuilding into a dental hygiene suite, and St Oswald’s now proudly operates as a five-surgery dental practice in a prime town-centre location.
