Prince George began his first day at Eton College on a rainy morning, arriving with Prince William and Catherine for the start of life as a boarder at the elite school. He was later photographed in the school uniform, wearing a black tailtail, waistcoat and stiff white collar.
The 13-year-old travelled the short journey from Forest Lodge in Windsor and reached the school yard overlooked by Lupton's Tower, where Simon Henderson greeted him with a handshake and the words: “Welcome, good luck and enjoy.” Sir Nicholas Coleridge was also there to welcome him.
The timing matters because George has now crossed from Lambrook in Berkshire into a school that will shape the rest of his teenage years. Eton College has educated 20 British prime ministers and charges fees of around £65,000 a year, making it one of the most exclusive places in British education and the one with the clearest royal and political pedigree.
That pedigree is also what gives the day its sharper edge. Prince William once said in June 2000 that he had “really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student,” and Eton is still described by Melanie Sanderson as a modern school with a progressive outlook. But George is not arriving as an ordinary pupil, and Sanderson said his parents have decided that an Eton education is the best preparation for “a very particular future” as a modern working royal.
How that future is managed will now be the point to watch. Eton has 25 boarding houses, each home to about 55 pupils from the age of 13 and led by residential staff headed by a house master, which means George will live within a tightly structured system rather than commute in and out. The public has already had the first glimpse of him in black tailcoat and collar; the next one will be less visible, and that is the point.
