{"id":885340,"date":"2026-09-09T06:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T06:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885340\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T06:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T06:20:17","slug":"eton-college-the-elite-school-that-taught-british-pms-bear-grylls-and-now-prince-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885340\/","title":{"rendered":"Eton College, the elite school that taught British PMs, Bear Grylls \u2014 and now Prince George"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are very few schools that can guarantee its graduating cohort will be future prime ministers, royals or esteemed stars.<\/p>\n

Britain’s Eton College may just be the exception.<\/p>\n

The exclusive boy’s school \u2014 just a stone’s throw away from Windsor Castle \u2014 boasts itself a venerable list of alumni.<\/p>\n

More than one in three British PMs including Boris Johnson and David Cameron attended the college, as did author George Orwell, actor Hugh Laurie and adventurer Bear Grylls.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most noted figures to walk the hallowed halls are its generations of British royals.<\/p>\n

That includes Prince William and Prince Harry.<\/p>\n

And now William’s eldest, Prince George, who started his first day at the school this week.<\/a><\/p>\n

But behind its 586-year history also lies unbending tradition, royal upset and controversy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Prince George will become the latest royal to enrol at Eton.\u00a0 (X: KensingtonRoyal)<\/p>\n

An expensive education \u2014 if you can get it<\/p>\n

The school was founded in 1440 by Henry VI to provide free education and a gateway to Cambridge for 70 poor boys.<\/p>\n

Its noble origins didn’t last long.<\/p>\n

The charity mission was soon scrapped by Edward IV who annulled the school’s grants and transferred a large number of its assets and treasures to St George’s Chapel, Windsor.<\/p>\n

Today, Eton is one of the UK’s most expensive schools \u2014 with tuition costing about of 65,000 British pounds ($121,000) a year.<\/p>\n

That is if you can pass its enrolment interviews, tests and references.<\/p>\n

Admission tests where, as recently as 2011 prospective students were asked to imagine they were prime minister and write a speech arguing that employing the army against violent protesters, and killing many of them, was “both necessary and moral”.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The pupils of Eton, ever the bastion of tradition, wear the uniform of a black tail coat over a black waistcoat and pinstriped trousers. (Reuters: Steve Parsons\/pool)<\/p>\n

Still, it remains one of the most coveted educations boys can acquire.<\/p>\n

Some reports <\/a>say the school sees around 1,300 registrations a year for approximately 250 spots.<\/p>\n

And Boris Johnson \u2014 at age 16 \u2014 was quoted extolling its virtues to parents because “you will imbue your son with the most important thing, a sense of his own importance”.<\/p>\n

Two brothers, two versions of Eton<\/p>\n

Prince William and Harry are perhaps the two Eton alumni who were born already knowing their Commonwealth importance.<\/p>\n

While more than half a dozen royals have attended the college, very few were as hounded as the brothers, who graduated in 2000 and 2003 respectively.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

At 18, Prince William posed at Eton, showing off his cooking skills, polo practice and studying.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Ken Goff)<\/p>\n

On his 18th birthday, William spoke about leaving Eton.<\/p>\n

“I’ll miss my friends and Dr Gailey (housemaster) who has been a tremendous support to me,” he said.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’ve really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student.”<\/p>\n

As for why he was doing a photo shoot at the college on his birthday?<\/p>\n

“I knew there would be a lot of media interest in my 18th and I didn’t want a whole host of media involved,” he answered.<\/p>\n

“Neither did I want any distractions as I was revising for my A-levels.”<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

While Prince William faced his first day at Eton with Princess Diana at his side, Prince Harry entered the school freshly grieving.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Stefan Rousseau\/ PA Images)<\/p>\n

His brother’s experience wasn’t quite the same.<\/p>\n

In his memoir Spare, Harry wrote William wanted him to pretend they didn’t know each other at school.<\/p>\n

The Duke of Sussex also called the school a “profound shock”, though soon clung onto the school’s strong rugby traditions.<\/p>\n

“Sport held me together,” he told Time<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

“I was one of those kids at school who did not enjoy classroom work.<\/p>\n

“If it wasn’t for the sports field and the amount of sports that were on offer, there’s no way I would have stayed in school.”<\/p>\n

Further controversy also engulfed Harry’s Eton years in 2006, when he was embroiled in cheating allegations.<\/p>\n

Dismissed teacher Sarah Forsyth said she had ghostwritten the prince’s A-level art project<\/a> \u2014 though Harry was later cleared of the allegations by the exam board.<\/p>\n

\"Prince<\/p>\n

Prince Harry with his teammates, the Oppidans, after competing in the traditonal Eton wall game.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Pool Photograph\/Corbis\/Corbis)<\/p>\n

A storied history of scandal<\/p>\n

And as Prince George begins his Eton journey, the school faces a fresh challenge: escaping further scandal.<\/p>\n

For an institution cloaked in tradition, it has also repeatedly been the perpetuator of institutional cover-up.<\/p>\n

Dating as far back as the 1920s, MI5 investigated allegations US actress Tallulah Bankhead seduced its students while headmaster Cyril Alington fought to keep the scandal from headlines.<\/p>\n

“He wants to do everything possible to keep Eton out of the scandal,” an investigator noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

In recent years moves to progress the school have been met with both outrage and encouragement.\u00a0 (Reuters: Eddie Keogh\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Several teachers have also been convicted of child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

As recently as 2020, former teacher Matthew Mowbray was jailed after abusing boys in the dorms,<\/a> with the pretext of discussing schoolwork.<\/p>\n

The same year, teacher Will Knowland was dismissed<\/a> for teaching students male aggression was a biological fact and that “saying smash the patriarchy \u2026 amounts to saying smash human nature and biological reality”.<\/p>\n

A letter asking for his reinstatement later gathered thousands of signatures.<\/p>\n

In 2022,<\/a> girls visiting from a nearby state school were also reportedly subjected to misogynistic language and racial slurs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Eton’s traditions, even including the joyful Fourth of June Day celebrations, face increasing scepticism.\u00a0 (Reuters: Eddie Keogh)<\/p>\n

Increasingly, Eton faces a world sceptical of its archaic elitism.<\/p>\n

Oxford and Cambridge admitted more Etonians each year than the country’s entire pool of boys poor enough to get free school meals, The Economist cited in 2009<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It has also been accused of rorting the EU’s farm subsidies,<\/a> scoring \u00a32,652 ($4,979) in funding.<\/p>\n

Even Australian venture capitalist Mark Carnegie noted Eton’s above-average influence in Sonia Purnell’s 2012 book about Boris Johnson<\/p>\n

“It became clear to me how powerful Eton is as a manufacturer of cultural capital,” he remarked about Mr Johnson’s education.<\/p>\n

“It’s disproportionately powerful, devastatingly so.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are very few schools that can guarantee its graduating cohort will be future prime ministers, royals or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,107427,13204,5513,7551],"class_list":["post-885340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-eton-college","tag-prince-george","tag-prince-harry","tag-prince-william"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}