Prince George will attend Eton College in September, Kensington Palace announced, ending speculation over where the Prince and Princess of Wales’s eldest child will continue his education. He will be 13 years old next month, the age when pupils start at the Berkshire private school.
Eton College and the Wales family
The decision places the second in line to the throne at a school with fees of around £63,000 per year, before the government’s added VAT on private school fees. Eton was founded in the 15th Century and has educated 20 British prime ministers, along with Prince William, Prince Harry and Earl Spencer.
Prince William wrote in June 2000, when he was 18, "I've really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student". That line now links father and son to the same school, after Prince George’s years at Lambrook School in Berkshire with Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
William’s Eton path
Prince George was seen with his parents and siblings at Trooping the Colour in London at the weekend, part of the gradual public role he has been taking on. A picture released for his 12th birthday last July had already put him back in the public view, but the school choice now gives the clearest sign yet of where his next stage of family life will be spent.
For families at Eton, the detail is fixed and practical: a royal pupil arrives in September, at the same age as every other boy who starts there, and the school’s most famous former students already include his father and uncle. The focus now shifts to the classroom move itself, as well as the cost attached to a place at a school that has long sat at the center of Britain’s political and social elite.
September at Eton College
George’s move also ends months of speculation that had included Marlborough College among the suggested options, and it confirms that the family has chosen a school with a strong royal link rather than a path away from it. September is the point when that choice becomes concrete, with the 13-year-old beginning at Eton College as the attention follows him from Lambrook to Berkshire’s most closely watched private school.
