Eton College began as free schooling for 70 poor boys under Henry VI
England's most famous school for the privileged started life as a royal charity, educating 70 poor boys at no cost as a feeder for King's College, Cambridge. Its founder planned a chapel with the longest nave in Europe, then lost his throne, and the half-finished building still shows where the money ran out.
Henry VI founded the school in 1440 beside Windsor, modelling it closely on Winchester College. He visited Winchester at least six times, had its statutes copied, poached its headmaster William Waynflete to serve as Eton's Provost and moved some Winchester scholars across to seed the new foundation. He showered it with endowments, including land confiscated from alien priories, plus relics said to include pieces of the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns.
When Edward IV deposed Henry in 1461, every grant was cancelled and much of the treasure went to St George's Chapel, Windsor. Legend credits Edward's mistress Jane Shore with saving part of the school. Work on the chapel stopped with only the quire and 8 bays built, instead of the 17 or 18 planned, and Waynflete finished it off with an ante-chapel. Building revived around 1517 under Provost Roger Lupton, whose gatehouse is the school's best-known image, and the College Library went up between 1725 and 1729.
A famous line is misattributed. Wellington, a pupil from 1781 to 1784, is often quoted saying Waterloo was won on Eton's playing fields, but the remark reported by the historian Sir Edward Creasy was vaguer, about sporting character among English youth in general. Victorian scrutiny arrived with the Clarendon Commission of 1861, whose questioning left headmaster Edward Balston criticised for giving classics almost all classroom time. From 1880 until 1971 the school also ran a mission in Hackney Wick in east London.
A bomb during the Blitz in December 1940 wrecked part of Upper School and shattered the chapel's glass. Evie Hone designed the great Crucifixion window, installed in 1952, and after her death John Piper created eight nave windows depicting miracles and parables. In 1969 Dillibe Onyeama became the first black pupil to earn Eton's leaving certificate; he was later banned for writing about racism there, and the present head, Simon Henderson, has since apologised. Today it takes boys aged 13 to 18 and is England's largest boarding school.
Source: Eton College
