Eton College is a boarding independent school for boys in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor. It educates more than 1,300 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor", making it the 18th oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) school.
Eton is one of ten English HMC schools, commonly referred to as "public schools", regulated by the Public Schools Act of 1868. Following the public school tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means all pupils live at the school, and it is one of four such remaining single-sex boys' public schools in the United Kingdom (the others being Harrow, Radley, and Winchester) to continue this practice. Eton has educated 19 British prime ministers and generations of the aristocracy and has been referred to as the chief nurse of England's statesmen. Charging up to £11,478 per term (there are three terms per academic year) in 2014/15, Eton is the sixth most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK.
Eton has a long list of distinguished former pupils. David Cameron was the 19th British prime minister to have attended the school, and recommended that Eton set up a school in the state sector to help drive up standards. Eton now co-sponsors a state sixth-form college in Newham, a deprived area of East London, called the London Academy of Excellence, opened in 2012, which is free of charge and aims to get all its students into higher education. In September 2014, Eton opened, and became the sole educational sponsor for, a new purpose-built co-educational state boarding and day school for around 500 pupils, Holyport College, in Maidenhead in Berkshire, with construction costing around £15 million, in which a fifth of places for day pupils will be set aside for children from poor homes, 21 boarding places will go to youngsters on the verge of being taken into care, and a further 28 boarders will be funded or part-funded through bursaries.
About 20% of pupils at Eton receive financial support, through a range of bursaries and scholarships. The recent Head Master, Tony Little, said that Eton is developing plans to allow any boy to attend the school whatever his parents' income and, in 2011, said that around 250 boys received "significant" financial help from the school. In early 2014, this figure had risen to 263 pupils receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, whilst a further 63 received their education free of charge. Little said that, in the short term, he wanted to ensure that around 320 pupils per year receive bursaries, and that 70 were educated free of charge, with the intention that the number of pupils receiving financial assistance would continue to increase. These comparatively new developments will run alongside long-established courses that Eton has provided for pupils from state schools, most of them in the summer holidays (July and August). Launched in 1982, the Universities Summer School is an intensive residential course open to boys and girls throughout the UK who attend state schools, are at the end of their first year in the Sixth Form, and are about to begin their final year of schooling. The Brent-Eton Summer School, started in 1994, offers 40–50 young people from the London Borough of Brent, an area of inner-city deprivation, an intensive one-week residential course, free of charge, designed to help bridge the gap between GCSE and A-level. In 2008, Eton helped found the Eton, Slough, Windsor and Hounslow Independent and State School Partnership (ISSP), with six local state schools. The ISSP's aims are "to raise pupil achievement, improve pupil self-esteem, raise pupil aspirations and improve professional practice across the schools". Eton also runs a number of choral and English language courses during the summer months.
In the run-up to the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games and London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games, Eton's purpose-built Dorney Lake, a permanent, eight-lane, 2,200 metre course (about 1.4 miles) in a 400-acre park, officially known throughout the Games as Eton Dorney, provided training facilities for Olympic and Paralympic competitors, and during the Games, hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Rowing competitions as well as the Olympic Canoe Sprint event, attracting over 400,000 visitors during the Games period (around 30,000 per day), and voted the best 2012 Olympic venue by spectators. Access to the parkland around the Lake is provided to members of the public, free of charge, almost all the year round.
In the past, Eton has educated generations of British and foreign aristocracy, and for the first time, members of the Royal family, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry, in contrast to the Royal tradition of male education at either naval college or Gordonstoun, or by Palace tutors. Registration at birth has been consigned to the past, and by the mid-1990s, Eton ranked among Britain's top three schools in getting its pupils into Oxford and Cambridge.
Eton has traditionally been referred to as "the chief nurse of England's statesmen", and has been described as the most famous public school in the world. Early in the 20th century, a historian of Eton wrote, "No other school can claim to have sent forth such a cohort of distinguished figures to make their mark on the world."
The Good Schools Guide called the school "the number one boys' public school", adding that "The teaching and facilities are second to none." The school is a member of the G20 Schools Group.
The school is headed by a Provost and Fellows (Board of Governors), who appoint the head master. It contains 25 boys' houses, each headed by a House Master, selected from the more senior members of the teaching staff, who number some 160.[] Almost all of the school's pupils go on to universities, about a third of them to Oxford or Cambridge.
The Head Master is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the school is a member of the Eton Group of independent schools in the United Kingdom.
Eton today is a larger school than it has been for much of its history. In 1678, there were 207 boys. In the late 18th century, there were about 300, while today, the total has risen to over 1,300.
Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its Statutes and removing its Headmaster and some of the Scholars to start his new school.
When Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. The group of feoffees appointed by the king to receive forfeited lands of the Alien Priories for the endowment of Eton were as follows:
It was intended to have formidable buildings (Henry intended the nave of the College Chapel to be the longest in Europe) and several religious relics, supposedly including a part of the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns. He persuaded the then Pope, Eugene IV, to grant him a privilege unparalleled anywhere in England: the right to grant indulgences to penitents on the Feast of the Assumption. The school also came into possession of one of England's Apocalypse manuscripts.
However, when Henry was deposed by King Edward IV in 1461, the new King annulled all grants to the school and removed most of its assets and treasures to St George's Chapel, Windsor, on the other side of the River Thames. Legend has it that Edward's mistress, Jane Shore, intervened on the school's behalf. She was able to save a good part of the school, although the royal bequest and the number of staff were much reduced.
Construction of the chapel, originally intended to be slightly over twice as long, with eighteen—or possibly seventeen—bays (there are eight today) was stopped when Henry VI was deposed. Only the Quire of the intended building was completed. Eton's first Headmaster, William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford and previously Head Master of Winchester College, built the ante-chapel that finishes the Chapel today. The important wall paintings in the Chapel and the brick north range of the present School Yard also date from the 1480s; the lower storeys of the cloister, including College Hall, had been built between 1441 and 1460.
As the school suffered reduced income while still under construction, the completion and further development of the school has since depended to some extent on wealthy benefactors. Building resumed when Roger Lupton was Provost, around 1517. His name is borne by the big gate-house in the west range of the cloisters, fronting School Yard, perhaps the most famous image of the school. This range includes the important interiors of the Parlour, Election Hall, and Election Chamber, where most of the 18th century "leaving portraits" are kept.
"After Lupton's time nothing important was built until about 1670, when Provost Allestree gave a range to close the west side of School Yard between Lower School and Chapel". This was remodelled later and completed 1694 by Matthew Bankes, Master Carpenter of the Royal Works. The last important addition to the central college buildings was the College Library, in the south range of the cloister, 1725–29, by Thomas Rowland. It has a very important collection of books and manuscripts.
In the 19th century, the architect John Shaw Jr (1803–1870) became surveyor to Eton. He designed New Buildings (1844–46), Provost Francis Hodgson's addition to provide better accommodation for Collegers, who until then had mostly lived in Long Chamber, a long first floor room where conditions were inhumane.
Following complaints about the finances, buildings and management of Eton, the Clarendon Commission was set up in 1861 as a Royal Commission to investigate the state of nine schools in England, including Eton. Questioned by the Commission in 1862, head master Edward Balston came under attack for his view that in the classroom little time could be spared for subjects other than classical studies.
The Duke of Wellington is often incorrectly quoted as saying that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton". Wellington was at Eton from 1781 to 1784 and was to send his sons there. According to Nevill (citing the historian Sir Edward Creasy), what Wellington said, while passing an Eton cricket match many decades later, was, "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo", a remark Nevill construes as a reference to "the manly character induced by games and sport" among English youth generally, not a comment about Eton specifically. In 1889, Sir William Fraser conflated this uncorroborated remark with the one attributed to him by Count Charles de Montalembert's "C'est ici qu'a été gagné la bataille de Waterloo" ("It is here that the Battle of Waterloo was won.")
As with other public schools, a scheme was devised towards the end of the 19th century to familiarize privileged schoolboys with social conditions in deprived areas. The project of establishing an 'Eton Mission' in the crowded district of Hackney Wick in east London was started at the beginning of 1880, and lasted until 1971 when it was decided that a more local project (at Dorney) would be more realistic. However over the years much money was raised for the Eton Mission, a fine church by G. F. Bodley was erected, many Etonians visited, and stimulated among other things the Eton Manor Boys' Club, a notable rowing club which has survived the Mission itself, and the 59 Club for motorcyclists.
The very large and ornate School Hall and School Library (by L. K. Hall) were erected in 1906–08 across the road from Upper School as the school's memorial to the Etonians who had died in the Boer War. Many tablets in the cloisters and chapel commemorate the large number of dead Etonians of the Great War. A bomb destroyed part of Upper School in World War Two and blew out many windows in the Chapel. The college commissioned replacements by Evie Hone (1949–52) and by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens (1959 onward).
Among headmasters of the 20th century were Cyril Alington, Robert Birley and Anthony Chenevix-Trench. M. R. James was a provost.
In 1959, the College constructed a nuclear bunker to house the College's Provost and Fellows. The facility is now used for storage.
In 2005, the School was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools found to have breached the Competition Act (see below under "Controversy").
In 2011, plans to attack Eton were found on the body of a senior al-Qaeda leader shot dead in Somalia.
In the past, people at Eton have occasionally been guilty of antisemitism. For a time, new admissions were called 'Jews' by their fellow Collegers.[1] In 1945, the school introduced a nationality statute conditioning entry on the applicant's father being British by birth. The statute was removed after the intervention of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the 1960s after it came to the attention of Oxford's Wykeham Professor of Logic, A. J. Ayer, himself Jewish and an Old Etonian, who "suspected a whiff of anti-semitism".
There are three academic terms (known as halves) in the year,
They are called halves because the school year was once split into two halves, between which the boys went home.
One boarding house, College, is reserved for 70 King's Scholars, who attend Eton on scholarships provided by the original foundation and awarded by examination each year; King's Scholars pay up to 90 percent of full fees, depending on their means. Of the other pupils, up to a third receive some kind of bursary or scholarship. The name "King's Scholars" is because the school was founded by King Henry VI in 1440. The original School consisted of the 70 Scholars (together with some Commensals) and the Scholars were educated and boarded at the foundation's expense.
King's Scholars are entitled to use the letters "KS" after their name and they can be identified by a black gown worn over the top of their tailcoats, giving them the nickname tugs (Latin: togati, wearers of gowns); and occasionally by a surplice in Chapel. The house is looked after by the Master in College.
As the School grew, more students were allowed to attend provided that they paid their own fees and lived in the town, outside the College's original buildings. These students became known as Oppidans, from the Latin word oppidum, meaning town. The Houses developed over time as a means of providing residence for the Oppidans in a more congenial manner, and during the 18th and 19th centuries were mostly run by women known as "dames". They typically contain about fifty boys. Although classes are organised on a School basis, most boys spend a large proportion of their time in their House. Each House has a formal name, mainly used for post and people outside the Eton community. It is generally known by the boys by the initials or surname of the House Master, the teacher who lives in the house and manages the pupils in it.
Not all boys who pass the College election examination choose to become King's Scholars. If they choose instead to belong to one of the 24 Oppidan Houses, they are known as Oppidan Scholars. Oppidan scholarships may also be awarded for consistently performing with distinction in School and external examinations. To gain an Oppidan Scholarship, a boy must have either three distinctions in a row or four throughout his career. Within the school, an Oppidan Scholar is entitled to use the letters OS after his name.
The Oppidan Houses are named Godolphin House, Jourdelay's, (both built as such c. 1720), Hawtrey House, Durnford House, (the first two built as such by the Provost and Fellows, 1845, when the school was increasing in numbers and needed more centralised control), The Hopgarden, South Lawn, Waynflete, Evans's, Keate House, Warre House, Villiers House, Common Lane House, Penn House, Walpole House, Cotton Hall, Wotton House, Holland House, Mustians, Angelo's, Manor House, Farrer House, Baldwin's Bec, The Timbralls, and Westbury.
In addition to the House Master, each house has a House Captain and a House Captain of Games. Some Houses have more than one. House prefects were once elected from the oldest year, but this no longer happens. The old term, Library, survives in the name of the room set aside for the oldest year's use, where boys have their own kitchen. Similarly, boys in their penultimate year have a room known as Debate.
There are entire house gatherings every evening, usually around 8:05–8:30 p.m. These are known as Prayers, due to their original nature. The House Master and boys have an opportunity to make announcements, and sometimes the boys provide light entertainment.
For much of Eton's history, junior boys had to act as "fags", or servants, to older boys. Their duties included cleaning, cooking, and running errands. A Library member was entitled to yell at any time and without notice, "Boy, Up!" or "Boy, Queue!", and all first-year boys had to come running. The last boy to arrive was given the task. These practices, known as fagging, were partially phased out of most houses in the 1970s. Captains of House and Games still sometimes give tasks to first-year boys, such as collecting the mail from School Office.[]
There are many inter-house competitions, mostly in sports.
The School is known for its traditions, including a uniform of black tailcoat (or morning coat) and waistcoat, false-collar and pinstriped trousers. Most pupils wear a white tie that is effectively a strip of cloth folded over into a starched, detachable collar, but some senior boys are entitled to wear a white bow tie and winged collar ("Stick-Ups"). There are some variations in the school dress worn by boys in authority, see School Prefects and King's Scholars sections.
The long-standing claim that the present uniform was first worn as mourning for the death of George III is unfounded. "Eton dress" has undergone significant changes since its standardisation in the 19th century. Originally (along with a top-hat and walking-cane), Etonian dress was reserved for formal occasions, but boys wear it today for classes, which are referred to as "divisions", or "divs". As stated above, King's Scholars wear a black gown over the top of their tailcoats, and occasionally a surplice in Chapel. Members of the teaching staff (known as Beaks) are required to wear a form of school dress when teaching.
From 1820 until 1967, boys under the height of 5'4" (1.63 m) were required to wear the 'Eton suit', which replaced the tailcoat with the cropped 'Eton jacket' (known colloquially as a "bum-freezer") and included an 'Eton collar', a large, stiff-starched, white collar. The Eton suit was copied by other schools and has remained in use in some, particularly choir schools.
The pupil to teacher ratio is 8:1, which is low by general school standards. Class sizes start at around twenty to twenty-five in the first year and are often below ten by the final year.
The original curriculum concentrated on prayers, Latin and devotion, and "as late as 1530 no Greek was taught".
Later the emphasis was on classical studies, dominated by Latin and Ancient History, and, for boys with sufficient ability, Classical Greek. From the latter part of the 19th century this curriculum has changed and broadened: for example, there are now more than 100 students of Chinese, which is a non-curriculum course. In the 1970s, there was just one school computer, in a small room attached to the science buildings. It used paper tape to store programs. Today, all boys must have laptop computers, and the school fibre-optic network connects all classrooms and all boys' bedrooms to the internet.
The primary responsibility for a boy's studies lies with his House Master, but he is assisted by an additional director of studies, known as a tutor. Classes, colloquially known as "divs" (divisions), are organised on a School basis; the classrooms are separate from the houses. New school buildings have appeared for teaching purposes every decade or so since New Schools, designed by Henry Woodyer and built 1861–63. Despite the introduction of modern technology, the external appearance and locations of many of the classrooms have remained unchanged for a long time.
Every evening, about an hour and a quarter, known as Quiet Hour, is set aside, during which boys are expected to study or prepare work for their teachers if not otherwise engaged. Some Houses, at the discretion of the House Master, may observe a second Quiet Hour after prayers in the evening. This is less formal, with boys being allowed to visit each other's rooms to socialise if neither boy has work outstanding.
The Independent Schools Inspectorate's latest report says, "Eton College provides an exceptionally good quality of education for all its pupils. They achieve high academic standards as a result of stimulating teaching, challenging expectations and first-class resources."
At Eton, there are dozens of organisations known as 'societies', in many of which pupils come together to discuss a particular topic, presided over by a master, and often including a guest speaker. At any one time there are about fifty societies and clubs in existence, catering for a wide range of interests and largely run by boys.
Societies tend to come and go, depending on the special enthusiasms of the masters and boys in the school at the time, but some have been in existence many years. Those in existence at present include: Aeronautical, African, Alexander Cozens (Art), Amnesty, Archeological, Architectural, Astronomy, Banks (conservation), Caledonian, Cheese, Classical, Comedy, Cosmopolitan, Debating, Design, Entrepreneurship, Geographical, Henry Fielding, Hispanic, History, Keynes (economics), Law, Literary, Mathematical, Medical, Middle Eastern, Model United Nations, Modern Languages, Oriental, Orwell (left-wing), Simeon (Christian), Parry (music), Photographic, Political, Praed (poetry), Rock (music), Rous (equestrian), Salisbury (diplomatic), Savile (Rare Books and Manuscripts), Shelley, Scientific, Sports, Tech Club, Theatre, Wellington (military), Wine and Wotton’s (philosophy).
Among past guest speakers are Andrew Lloyd Webber, J. K. Rowling, Vivienne Westwood, Ian McKellen, Kevin Warwick, Boris Johnson, Rowan Atkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Terry Wogan, King Constantine II of Greece, Katie Price, Zoe Wanamaker, Boris Berezovsky and Kit Hesketh-Harvey.
Prizes are awarded on the results of trials (internal exams), GCSE and AS-levels. In addition, many subjects and activities have specially endowed prizes, several of which are awarded by visiting experts. The most prestigious is the Newcastle Scholarship, awarded on the strength of an examination, consisting of two papers in philosophical theology, moral theory and applied ethics. Also of note are the Gladstone Memorial Prize and the Coutts Prize, awarded on the results of trials and AS-level examinations in C; and the Huxley Prize, awarded for a project on a scientific subject. Other specialist prizes include the Newcastle Classical Prize; the Rosebery Exhibition for History; the Queen's Prizes for French and German; the Duke of Newcastle's Russian Prize; the Beddington Spanish Prize; the Strafford and Bowman Shakespeare Prizes; the Tomline and Russell Prizes in Mathematics; the Sotheby Prize for History of Art; the Waddington Prize for Theology and Philosophy; the Birley Prize for History; The Lower Boy Rosebery Prize and the Wilder Prize for Theology. Prizes are awarded too for excellence in such activities as painting, sculpture, ceramics, playing musical instruments, musical composition, declamation, silverwork, and design.
Various benefactions make it possible to give grants each year to boys who wish, for educational or cultural reasons, to work or travel abroad. These include the Busk Fund, which supports individual ventures that show particular initiative; the C. M. Wells Memorial Trust Fund, for the promotion of visits to classical lands; the Sadler Fund, which supports, among others, those intending to enter the Foreign Service; and the Marsden Fund, for travel in countries where the principal language is not English.
Eton has a well-established system for encouraging boys to produce high-standard work. An excellent piece of work may be rewarded with a "Show Up", to be shown to the boy's tutors as evidence of progress. If, in any particular term, a pupil makes a particularly good effort in any subject, he may be "Commended for Good Effort" to the Head Master (or Lower Master).
If any boy produces an outstanding piece of work, it may be "Sent Up For Good", storing the effort in the College Archives for posterity. This award has been around since the 18th century. As Sending Up For Good is fairly infrequent, the process is rather mysterious to many of Eton's boys. First, the master wishing to Send Up For Good must gain the permission of the relevant Head of Department. Upon receiving his or her approval, the piece of work will be marked with Sent Up For Good and the student will receive a card to be signed by House Master, tutor and division master.
The opposite of a Show Up is a "Rip". This is for sub-standard work, which is sometimes torn at the top of the page/sheet and must be submitted to the boy's housemaster for signature. Boys who accumulate rips are liable to be given a "White Ticket", which must be signed by all his teachers and may be accompanied by other punishments, usually involving doing domestic chores or writing lines. In recent times,[] a milder form of the rip, 'sign for information', colloquially known as an "info", has been introduced, which must also be signed by the boy's housemaster and tutor.
Internal examinations are held at the end of the Michaelmas term for all pupils, and in the Summer term for those in the first, second and fourth years. These internal examinations are called "Trials".
A boy who is late for any division or other appointment may be required to sign "Tardy Book", a register kept in the School Office, between 7:35am and 7:45am, every morning for the duration of his sentence (typically three days). Tardy Book may also be issued for late work. For more serious misdeeds, a boy is summoned from his lessons to the Head Master, or Lower Master if the boy is in the lower two years, to talk personally about his misdeeds. This is known as the "Bill". The most serious misdeeds may result in expulsion, or rustication (suspension). Conversely, should a master be more than 15 minutes late for a class, traditionally the pupils might claim it as a "run" and absent themselves for the rest of its duration.
A traditional form of punishment took the form of being made to copy, by hand, Latin hexameters. Miscreants were frequently set 100 hexameters by Library members, or, for more serious offences, Georgics (more than 500 hexameters) by their House Masters or the Head Master. The giving of a Georgic is now extremely rare, but still occasionally occurs.
Eton used to be renowned for its use of corporal punishment, generally known as "beating". In the 16th century, Friday was set aside as "flogging day".
Beating was phased out in the 1980s. The film director Sebastian Doggart claims to have been the last boy caned at Eton, in 1984. Until 1964, offending boys could be summoned to the Head Master or the Lower Master, as appropriate, to receive a birching on the bare posterior, in a semi-public ceremony held in the Library, where there was a special wooden birching block over which the offender was held.
John Keate, Head Master from 1809 to 1834, took over at a time when discipline was poor. Anthony Chenevix-Trench, Head Master from 1964 to 1970, abolished the birch and replaced it with caning, also applied to the bare posterior, which he administered privately in his office. Chenevix-Trench also abolished corporal punishment administered by senior boys. Previously, House Captains were permitted to cane miscreants over the seat of the trousers. This was a routine occurrence, carried out privately with the boy bending over with his head under the edge of a table. Less common but more severe were the canings administered by Pop (see Eton Society below) in the form of a "Pop-Tanning", in which a large number of hard strokes were inflicted by the President of Pop in the presence of all Pop members (or, in earlier times, each member of Pop took it in turns to inflict a stroke). The culprit was summoned to appear in a pair of old trousers, as the caning would cut the cloth to shreds. This was the most severe form of physical punishment at Eton.
Chenevix-Trench's successor from 1970, Michael McCrum, retained private corporal punishment by masters, but ended the practice of requiring boys to take their trousers and underwear down when bending over to be caned by the Head Master. By the mid-1970s, the only people allowed to administer caning were the Head Master and the Lower Master.
In addition to the masters, the following three categories of senior boys are entitled to exercise School discipline. Boys who belong to any of these categories, in addition to a limited number of other boy office holders, are entitled to wear winged collars with bow ties.
It is possible to belong to the Eton Society and Sixth Form Select at the same time.
In the era of Queen Elizabeth I there were two praepostors in every form, who noted down the names of absentees. Until the late 19th century, there was a praepostor for every division of the school.
Sport is a feature of Eton; there is an extensive network of playing fields. Their names include Agar's Plough, Dutchman's, Upper Club, Lower Club, Sixpenny/The Field, and Mesopotamia (situated between two streams and often shortened to "Mespots").
The rowing lake at Dorney was developed and is owned by the College. It was the venue for the rowing and canoeing events at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the World Junior Rowing Championships.
The annual cricket match against Harrow at Lord's Cricket Ground is the oldest fixture of the cricketing calendar, having been played there since 1805. A staple of the London society calendar since the 1800s, in 1914, its importance was such that over 38,000 people attended the two days' play, and in 1910 the match made national headlines. But interest has since declined considerably, and the match is now a one-day limited overs contest.
There is a running track at the Thames Valley Athletics Centre and an annual steeplechase.
Among the other sports played at Eton is Eton Fives.
In 1815, Eton College documented its football rules, the first football code to be written down anywhere in the world.
The current "Precentor" (Head of Music) is Tim Johnson, and the School boasts eight organs and an entire building for music (performance spaces include the School Hall, the Farrer Theatre and two halls dedicated to music, the Parry Hall and the Concert Hall). Many instruments are taught, including obscure ones such as the didgeridoo. The School participates in many national competitions; many pupils are part of the National Youth Orchestra, and the School gives scholarships for dedicated and talented musicians. A former Precentor of the college, Ralph Allwood set up and organised Eton Choral Courses, which run at the School every summer.
In 2009, the School's musical protégés came to wider notice when featured in a TV documentary A Boy Called Alex. The film followed an Etonian, Alex Stobbs, a musician with cystic fibrosis, as he worked toward conducting the difficult Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Numerous plays are put on every year at Eton College; there is one main theatre, called the Farrer (seating 400) and 2 Studio theatres, called the Caccia Studio and Empty Space (seating 90 and 80 respectively). There are about 8 or 9 house productions each year, around 3 or 4 "independent" plays (not confined solely to one house, produced, directed and funded by Etonians) and three school plays, one specifically for boys in the first two years, and two open to all years. The School Plays have such good reputations that they are normally fully booked every night. Productions also take place in varying locations around the School, varying from the sports fields to more historic buildings such as Upper School and College Chapel.
In recent years, the School has put on a musical version of The Bacchae (October 2009) as well as productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (May 2010), The Cherry Orchard (February 2011), Joseph K (October 2011), Cyrano de Bergerac (May 2012), Macbeth (October 2012), London Assurance (May 2013) and Jerusalem (October 2013). Upcoming in May 2014 was a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream . Often girls from surrounding schools, such as St George's, Ascot, St Mary's School Ascot, Windsor Girls' School and Heathfield St Mary's School, are cast in female roles. Boys from the School are also responsible for the lighting, sound and stage management of all the productions, under the guidance of several professional full-time theatre staff.
Every year, Eton employs a 'Director-in-Residence', an external professional director on a one-year contract who normally directs one house play and the Lower Boy play (a school play open solely to the first two-year groups), as well as teaching Drama and Theatre Studies to most year groups.
The drama department is headed by Hailz-Emily Osborne and several other teachers; Simon Dormandy was on the staff until late 2012. The School offers GCSE drama as well as A-level "English with Theatre Studies."
Eton's best-known holiday takes place on the so-called "Fourth of June", a celebration of the birthday of King George III, Eton's greatest patron. This day is celebrated with the Procession of Boats, in which the top rowing crews from the top four years row past in vintage wooden rowing boats. Similar to the Queen's Official Birthday, the "Fourth of June" is no longer celebrated on 4 June, but on the Wednesday before the first weekend of June. Eton also observes St. Andrew's Day, on which the Eton wall game is played.[]
The Junior Chronicle and The Chronicle are the official School magazines, the latter having been founded in 1863. Both are edited by boys at the School. Although liable to censorship, the latter has a tradition of satirising and attacking School policies, as well as documenting recent events. The Oppidan, founded in 1828, was published once a Half; it covered all sport in Eton and some professional events as well, but no longer exists.
Other School magazines, including The Spectrum (the Academic Yearbook), The Arts Review, and The Eton Zeitgeist have been published, as well as publications produced by individual departments such as The Cave (Philosophy), Etonomics (Economics), Scientific Etonian (Science), Timeline (History), Praed (Poetry and Song), The Mayflower (English), and The Lexicon (Modern Languages).
Until 18 December 2010, Eton College was an exempt charity under English law (Charities Act 1993, Schedule 2). Under the provisions of the Charities Act 2006, it is now an excepted charity, and fully registered with the Charities Commission, and is now one of the 100 largest charities in the UK. As a charity, it benefits from substantial tax breaks. It was calculated by the late David Jewell, former Master of Haileybury, that in 1992 such tax breaks saved the School about £1,945 per pupil per year, although he had no direct connection with the School. This subsidy has declined since the 2001 abolition by the Labour Government of state-funded scholarships (formerly known as "assisted places") to independent schools. However, no child attended Eton on this scheme, meaning that the actual level of state assistance to the School has always been lower. Eton's retiring Head Master, Tony Little, has claimed that the benefits that Eton provides to the local community free of charge (use of its facilities, etc.) have a higher value than the tax breaks it receives as a result of its charitable status. The fee for the academic year 2010–2011 was £29,862 (approximately US$48,600 or €35,100 as of March 2011), although the sum is considerably lower for those pupils on bursaries and scholarships.
In 1995 the National Lottery granted money for a £4.6m sports complex, to add to Eton's existing facilities of two swimming pools, 30 cricket squares, 24 football, rugby and hockey pitches and a gym. The College paid £200,000 and contributed 4.5 hectares of land in return for exclusive use of the facilities during the daytime only. The UK Sports Council defended the deal on the grounds that the whole community would benefit, while the bursar claimed that Windsor, Slough and Eton Athletic Club was "deprived" because local people (who were not pupils at the College) did not have a world-class running track and facilities to train with. Steve Osborn, director of the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit, described the decision as "staggering" given the background of a substantial reduction in youth services by councils across the country, a matter over which, however, neither the College nor the UK Sports Council, had any control. The facility, which became the Thames Valley Athletics Centre, opened in April 1999.
In October 2004, Sarah Forsyth claimed that she had been dismissed unfairly by Eton College and had been bullied by senior staff. She also claimed she was instructed to do some of Prince Harry's coursework to enable him to pass AS Art. As evidence, Forsyth provided secretly recorded conversations with both Prince Harry and her Head of Department, Ian Burke. An employment tribunal in July 2005 found that she had been unfairly dismissed and criticised Burke for bullying her and for repeatedly changing his story. It also criticised the school for failing to produce its capability procedures and criticised the Head Master for not reviewing the case independently.
It criticised Forsyth's decision to record a conversation with Harry as an abuse of teacher–student confidentiality and said "It is clear whichever version of the evidence is accepted that Mr Burke did ask the claimant to assist Prince Harry with text for his expressive art project. ... It is not part of this tribunal's function to determine whether or not it was legitimate." In response to the tribunal's ruling concerning the allegations about Prince Harry, the School issued a statement, saying Forsyth's claims "were dismissed for what they always have been—unfounded and irrelevant." A spokesperson from Clarence House said, "We are delighted that Harry has been totally cleared of cheating."
In 2005, the Office of Fair Trading found fifty independent schools, including Eton, to have breached the Competition Act by "regularly and systematically" exchanging information about planned increases in school fees, which was collated and distributed among the schools by the bursar at Sevenoaks School. Following the investigation by the OFT, each school was required to pay around £70,000, totalling around £3.5 million, significantly less than the maximum possible fine. In addition, the schools together agreed to contribute another £3m to a new charitable educational fund. The incident raised concerns over whether the charitable status of independent schools such as Eton should be reconsidered, and perhaps revoked. However, Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said the schools were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other because independent schools were previously exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business and that they were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."
A Freedom of Information request in 2005 revealed that Eton had received £2,652 in farming subsidies in 2004 under the Common Agricultural Policy. Asked to explain under what grounds it was eligible to receive farming subsidies, Eton admitted that it was 'a bit of a mystery'. Panorama revealed in March 2012 that farming subsidies were granted to Eton for 'environmental improvements', in effect 'being paid without having to do any farming at all'.
Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph had revealed that, in 2010, 37 applicants from Eton were accepted by Oxford whilst state schools had difficulty obtaining entry even for pupils with the country's most impressive exam results. According to The Economist, Oxford and Cambridge admit more Etonians each year than applicants from the whole country who qualify for free school meals. In April 2011 the Labour MP David Lammy described as unfair and 'indefensible' the fact that Oxford University had organised nine 'outreach events' at Eton in 2010, although he admitted that it had, in fact, held fewer such events for Eton than for another independent school, Wellington College.
In May 2013, Eton College was criticised in several editorials for asking potential 2011 scholarship students how, if they were Prime Minister, they might defend the use of lethal force by the Army after two days of violent protests in which several policemen have been killed.
In July 2015, Eton accidentally sent emails to 400 prospective students, offering them conditional entrance to the school in September 2017. The email was intended for nine students, but an IT glitch caused the email to be sent to 400 additional families, who didn't necessarily have a place. In response, the school issued the following statement: "This error was discovered within minutes and each family was immediately contacted to notify them that it should be disregarded and to apologise. We take this type of incident very seriously indeed and so a thorough investigation, overseen by the headmaster Tony Little and led by the tutor for admissions, is being carried out to find out exactly what went wrong and ensure it cannot happen again. Eton College offers its sincere apologies to those boys concerned and their families. We deeply regret the confusion and upset this must have caused."
Eton College has links with some private schools in India today, maintained from the days of the British Raj, such as The Doon School and Mayo College. Eton College is also a member of the G20 Schools Group, a collection of college preparatory boarding schools from around the world, including Turkey's Robert College, the United States' Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy, Australia's Scotch College, Melbourne Grammar School and Launceston Church Grammar School, Singapore's Raffles Institution, and Switzerland's International School of Geneva. Eton has recently fostered[] a relationship with the Roxbury Latin School, a traditional all-boys private school in Boston, US. Former Eton headmaster and provost Sir Eric Anderson shares a close friendship with Roxbury Latin Headmaster emeritus F. Washington Jarvis; Anderson has visited Roxbury Latin on numerous occasions, while Jarvis briefly taught theology at Eton after retiring from his headmaster post at Roxbury Latin. The headmasters' close friendship spawned the Hennessy Scholarship, an annual prize established in 2005 and awarded to a graduating RL senior for a year of study at Eton. Hennessy Scholars generally reside in Wotton house.
The Doon School, founded in 1935, was the first all-boys' public school in India modelled along the lines of Eton. The School's first headmaster was an Englishman, Arthur E. Foot, who had spent nine years as a science master at Eton College, before joining Doon. This led to similar slang being introduced in Doon which is still in use today, such as trials, dame, fagging, schools (as opposed to 'periods') and tuck shop.
In Doon's early years, faculty from Eton travelled to India to fill up the academic posts. Peter Lawrence was one of the first few masters to go to Doon. In February 2013, Eton's Head Master Tony Little visited the Doon School in India to hold talks with Peter McLaughlin, headmaster of Doon, on further collaboration between the two schools. Both schools participate in an exchange programme which sees boys from either school visiting the other for one academic term.
Although the School has often been cited as 'Eton of India' by media outlets such as BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph and Forbes, it strongly eschews the label.
In September 2014 Eton College helped establish Holyport College, a state-funded free school with boarding facilities. The school is located in Holyport, Berkshire and Eton College acts as the main educational sponsor of the school.
Former pupils of Eton College are known as Old Etonians.
Eton has produced nineteen British Prime Ministers, including Sir Robert Walpole, William Pitt the Elder, the first Duke of Wellington, William Ewart Gladstone, the fifth Lord Rosebery, Arthur James Balfour, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, and David Cameron.
A rising number of pupils come to Eton from overseas, including members of royal families from Europe, Africa and Asia, some of whom have been sending their sons to Eton for generations. One of them, King Prajadhipok or Rama VII (1893–1941) of Siam, donated a garden to Eton. The former Prime Minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who governed from 2008 to 2011, was also educated at Eton. King Leopold III of Belgium was sent to Eton during the First World War.
Besides Prince William and Prince Harry, members of the extended British Royal Family who have attended Eton include Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and his son Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster; Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, his eldest son George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews and grandson Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick and his youngest son Lord Nicholas Windsor; Prince Michael of Kent and his son Lord Frederick Windsor; James Ogilvy, son of Princess Alexandra and the Right Honourable Angus Ogilvy, himself an Eton alumnus. Prince William of Gloucester (1942–1972) also attended Eton, as did George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, son of Princess Mary, Princess Royal.
The former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, elected in 2008 and 2012, was educated at Eton, as was Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.
Old Etonians who have been writers include Henry Fielding, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Aldous Huxley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Bridges, Gilbert Frankau, Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), Anthony Powell, Cyril Connolly and Ian Fleming. The mediaevalist and ghost story writer M. R. James was provost of Eton from 1918 until his death in 1936.
Other notable Old Etonians include scientists Robert Boyle, John Maynard Smith, J. B. S. Haldane, Stephen Wolfram and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner, John Gurdon; Beau Brummell; economists John Maynard Keynes and Richard Layard; Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates; politician Alan Clark; entrepreneur, charity organiser and partner of Adele, Simon Konecki; cricket commentator Henry Blofeld; explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes; adventurer Bear Grylls; composers Thomas Arne, George Butterworth, Roger Quilter, Frederick Septimus Kelly, Donald Tovey, Thomas Dunhill, Lord Berners, Victor Hely-Hutchinson, and Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine); Hubert Parry, who wrote the song Jerusalem and the coronation anthem I was glad; and musicians Frank Turner and Humphrey Lyttelton.
Notable Old Etonians in the media include the former Political Editor of both ITN and The Times, Julian Haviland; the current BBC Deputy Political Editor, James Landale, and the BBC Science Editor, David Shukman; the current President of Conde Nast International and Managing Director of Conde Nast UK, Nicholas Coleridge; the former ITN newscaster and BBC Panorama presenter, Ludovic Kennedy; current BBC World News and BBC Rough Justice current affairs presenter David Jessel; former chief ITV and Channel 4 racing commentator John Oaksey; 1950s BBC newsreader and 1960s ITN newscaster Timothy Brinton; 1960s BBC newsreader Corbet Woodall; the former Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore; the former Editor of The Spectator, Ferdinand Mount; and the current Editor of The Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig.
Notable Old Etonian film and television actors include Eddie Redmayne, Damian Lewis, Christopher Cazenove, Dominic West, Jeremy Clyde, actor and comedian Michael Bentine, Sebastian Armesto, Julian Ovenden, Henry Faber, Jeremy Brett, Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Ian Ogilvy, John Standing, Harry Hadden-Paton, Moray Watson, Jeremy Child, Harry Lloyd, Patrick Macnee and Nyasha Hatendi.
Actor Dominic West has been unenthusiastic about the career benefits of being an Old Etonian, saying it "is a stigma that is slightly above 'paedophile' in the media in a gallery of infamy", but asked whether he would consider sending his own children there, said "Yes, I would. It's an extraordinary place. ... It has the facilities and the excellence of teaching and it will find what you’re good at and nurture it", while the actor Tom Hiddleston says there are widespread misconceptions about Eton, and that "People think it's just full of braying toffs. ... It isn't true... It's actually one of the most broadminded places I've ever been. The reason it's a good school is that it encourages people to find the thing they love and to go for it. They champion the talent of the individual and that's what's special about it".
Thirty-seven Old Etonians have been awarded the Victoria Cross—the largest number to alumni of any school.
Many fictional characters have been described as Old Etonians. These include:
Here follows a list of films partially filmed at Eton.
Opening scenes of 'Public Eye' British TV series (1965–1975) where Alfred Burke as dour private-eye Frank Marker has an office in Eton.
