Prince George will attend Eton College from September, Kensington Palace has confirmed, following in the footsteps of his father Prince William and uncle Prince Harry at one of Britain’s most exclusive and expensive schools.
The annual fees of £63,000 make Eton well out of reach for the vast majority of families, with each of the three terms costing £21,099.60. William and Kate are understood to have visited several schools before settling on Eton, including Marlborough College, the co-educational school Kate herself attended, before ultimately choosing the institution known above all others as the finishing school of the British establishment.
The decision carries obvious practical advantages. Eton sits just across the river from Windsor Castle, a short 15-minute drive from Fort Belvedere, the Wales family home in the Windsor Estate grounds. Prince William famously made use of the same proximity during his own time at Eton, often visiting his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II for tea at Windsor Castle. His father knows the school well having enrolled in 1995, with Prince Harry following in 1998.
The college’s list of alumni reads as a roll call of British elite. Twenty prime ministers have walked its corridors, from Sir Robert Walpole in the 18th century to David Cameron and Boris Johnson in living memory. Novelists, actors and public figures from George Orwell to Eddie Redmayne and Damian Lewis are among its former pupils. The institution has shaped the British establishment for centuries, a tradition reinforced rather than challenged by George’s enrolment.
Boys at Eton continue to wear tailcoats, a sartorial tradition unchanged for generations and a visual reminder of the school’s distance from ordinary British life. For a couple who have publicly sought to raise their children with a degree of normality — spending years in Norfolk and keeping George, Charlotte and Louis out of the limelight where possible — the choice of the country’s most socially elevated school sits in some tension with that image.
What Eton will undoubtedly offer George is an exceptional academic environment, an unrivalled network and, given the school’s close ties to the monarchy, a certain degree of institutional understanding of the path that lies ahead of him.
