Eton College: The History of the UK's Most Famous School

Eton College began in 1440, when King Henry VI decided to found a school with a name far longer than the one we know today: “Kynge’s College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore”. Its original purpose was not a school for wealthy families, but the opposite: to provide free board, lodging and education to a group of poor boys, the King’s Scholars. Its architectural and institutional model drew on Winchester College and New College, Oxford, both founded by William of Wykeham, and in the same period Henry VI also founded King’s College, Cambridge, where Eton scholars went on to study.

From charity school to a school of two classes of pupils

The original plans soon changed. In 1443 Henry VI expanded the foundation: the number of scholars rose to 70, while the bedesmen, the poor men supported by the school, fell from 25 to 13. That same year the oppidans appeared, the commensals or fee-paying pupils distinct from the scholars, who over time became the school’s largest group.

A practical example: the distinction between scholars and oppidans helps explain why Eton was not founded as a school for the wealthy few. For centuries the two categories lived side by side in the same school on different terms: one free and tied to the merit of the original foundation, the other paid for.

The curriculum changes with the centuries

The school did not stay fixed to its medieval design. Greek entered the curriculum in the early 1600s, while it took until 1722 for the first proper boarding house, Jourdelay’s, to be built. Eton’s rise in prestige among British schools is traced, according to Britannica, to the headmastership of Edward Barnard, between 1754 and 1765: an era in which the United Kingdom was also living through the sweeping social and economic changes told in the Recap on the Industrial Revolution, which reshaped the country the school operated in.

A century later, two more turning points arrived: in 1851 mathematics became the first new subject to join the classics, and in 1861 the Clarendon Commission brought significant reforms to how the school was run.

Who got into Eton, and how admissions changed

For most of its history, getting into Eton depended heavily on family connections. During the 20th century the school began weighing academic ability more than belonging to a family with historical ties to it.

A practical example: the 2002 reform helps measure this shift. Before that year, a family’s own history with the school was often enough; from that year on, every candidate, wealthy or scholarship-bound, faced the same path of interviews, written tests and references before winning a place.

The school today: houses, buildings, fees

According to the school’s official site, Eton counts 24 boarding houses, plus College, where the King’s Scholars live. The complex, which includes buildings dating to 1441-1446 such as most of School Yard and Green Court, College Hall and the Lower School, is listed Grade I, the highest level of heritage protection in the United Kingdom. In 2026 annual fees stood at around £65,000, according to an article published that September, among the highest in the United Kingdom.

Who studied there

Much of Eton’s fame rests on who studied there. According to the sources, more than one in three British prime ministers attended the school, including Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Other alumni cited include the writer George Orwell, the actor Hugh Laurie and the adventurer Bear Grylls, alongside Princes William and Harry and, from September 2026, Prince George.