Eton College, 2023

Roger Howe describes the Orwell Society’s visit

March 2023

The Group with the Statue of King Henry VI

Eric Blair made two blasphemous utterances at Eton:

“There are at least six masters on the staff who make a very good living out of the Crucifixion. It’s worth over £2,000 a year between them… I reckon that must have been the most profitably exploited event in history – and they all have to talk as if they wish it hadn’t happened.” (Jeffrey Meyers, Wintry Conscience of a Generation, p.34)

and

“When in boyhood he read about the great fire in Alexandria, which destroyed the texts of many Greek tragedies, the little philistine was ‘filled with enthusiastic approval. It was so many less words to look up’ in the Liddell and Scott dictionary.” (Meyers, p.40)

George Orwell expressed himself on the subject of his old school in a review of Eton Medley by B. J. W. Hill in The Observer on 1 August 1948:

“It is hard to disentangle admiration from dismay when one learns that Eton in 1948 is almost exactly what it was in 1918. If any change at all can be inferred from the photographs in Mr Hill’s book it is that the boys now go about bareheaded, owing to the lamentable shortage of top hats.”

Far from being doomed as he had thought when he was a King’s Scholar at Eton in the years 1917-21, the school had survived and still survives and thrives long after many trade unions and Marxist dogmatists have become defunct.

The Orwell Society had an opportunity to observe Eton College at first hand last Wednesday. Jeremy Riggs shepherded the group around the courtyard where the statue of King Henry VI,the school’s sad founder stands. He founded both Eton and Kings College Cambridge. We went on to Lower School with its gnarled and much carved oak desks, which have been in constant use since the school’s founding in 1440.

The view of Lower School from the Head’s Desk

A Desktop

We went from Upper School to the Chapel which has rare Flemish medieval wall-paintings depicting the various ways in which the Blessed Virgin, the school’s patroness, thwarted the devil.

These were not very clear having been whitewashed over for a couple of hundred years but were very realistic.

From the Chapel we went on to the College Library where Stephie Coane showed the group Blair/Orwell memorabilia as well some of their ancient books including one from the 1400s. Among the Orwell memorabilia is a book lent to a colleague, who having failed to return it donated it to the School.

Orwell’s book

After the formal visit, Sarah Warren, the Head Librarian of the beautiful boys’ library, showed us the excellent range of what is available to current pupils. This building, which is opposite the main entrance to the School has recently been extensively renovated including the domed ceiling.

View of the upper floor including part of the dome

The scholars’ uniform is unchanged since 1850 and lends itself to a certain insouciant hands-in-pockets swagger. There were plenty of the young gentlemen in evidence, many showing younger prospective pupils and their families around.

There is a tremendous range of activities going on, Jeremy Riggs said. The school is “like a small city”. The boys get ample return for their £48,000 a year fees, including access to the river and the rowing lake. Despite these fees, the school relies on its investments and endowments to continue to follow its aim to produce “rounded individuals”, not hedge fund managers.

Some of the essay questions posed to the future Orwell were quite probing. “Who do you consider the ten greatest men of the present day?” for example.

Any takers?

In Eric Blair’s day there was the Eton Mission in Hackney Wick, though it is not clear he visited it either as a schoolboy or a customer. Today Eton has a lot charitable engagement with the less fortunate, including offering fully funded Scholarships. One of the Scholarships is The Orwell Scholarship for twelve 6th Form pupils a year. We met one of the current Scholars in the school library.

Bernard Crick wrote that in The Unknown Orwell, Stansky and Abrahams devote “about a third of the book to a fascinating and fascinated account of Eton” which tells more about the school in general than Orwell/Eric Blair in particular. I do not have this book so I cannot comment.

Orwell no doubt came across Somerset Maugham’s observation in the novel Of Human Bondage that the Boer War was “lost on the playing fields of Eton”. Most people tolerate a certain amount of privilege so long it is not too extreme.

A training for kings and commoners that should render them not just confident in public speaking but proof against witches, bitches, and feral accountants.

Orwell read widely and donated Shaw’s Misalliance to the College Reading Room. (Meyers, p.46) Sir Roger Mynors and other school-fellows recalled him arguing in a Socratic manner, looking at all sides of the argument. (Crick, pp.103-4) This discipline clearly served Orwell well in later life. We were told that the school now constantly challenges pupils to focus on problem solving.

“Orwell retained the languid, weary manner of an Old Etonian, yet also had a commanding presence (intensified by his ascetic gauntness) that enabled him to assume authority in dangerous situations.” (Meyers, p.46)

Alas, we did not see the Wall and the “flogging block” mentioned in Orwell’s review as it is no longer shown.

The Orwell Bust and very apt quotation at the entrance to the Pupil’s Library

Suitably decorated for current circumstances.

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Roger Howe