20 September: Eton College

This date in 1441 saw the founding of Eton College. 10 things you might not know about the famous school:

1. When it was founded by King Henry VI it was a charity school, intended to give boys from poor backgrounds a chance to get an education and attend Cambridge University. It was called “Kynge’s College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore” and was a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge. Now it's known as a school for rich, posh people with fees of over £42,000 a year, although there are still students who receive financial assistance, including some who attend free of charge.
2. The school uniform consists of a Black morning coat, worn over a black waistcoat and pinstriped Trousers and a distinctive White neck tie.
3. Former pupils include Percy Bysshe Shelley, George Orwell, Christopher Lee, Bear Grylls, Aldous Huxley, Ian Fleming, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, Hugh Laurie. Not to mention the Duke of Wellington, Princes William and Harry and twenty British Prime Ministers. Perhaps that's why, in 2011, plans to attack Eton were found on the body of a senior al-Qaeda leader shot dead in Somalia.
4. It has also been a film location on several locations. Shakespeare in Love, Chariots of Fire, Young Sherlock Holmes, The Madness of King George, Casino Royale and the TV series Inspector Morse all used it as a location.
5. The motto of the college is Floreat Etona ("may Eton flourish").
6. It has its own slang and distinctive set of rules. Terms are known as "halves", teachers are known as "beaks". Boys who produce good work may get a "Show Up", where their efforts get shown to their tutor as a sign they're doing well. A really outstanding piece of work might even get "Sent Up For Good", in other words, stored in the school archives, although this is rare and involves a certain amount of paperwork. Bad work gets a "Rip" in which the top of the page is torn. Too many rips result in a "White Ticket", or a progress report that has to be signed periodically. Being late for anything means a boy will have to sign the "Tardy Book", a register kept in the School Office, for several days. Lines are another common punishment, but here you won't get "I must not talk in class" 100 times but rather copying by hand 100 hexameters of Latin poems. Really serious offences may even get what's known as a Georgic, which involves copying 500 or more hexameters. Up until the 1980s, boys could even end up being caned or flogged. In the 16th century, Friday was set aside as "flogging day". Canings could be so severe that the trousers a boy was wearing would be ripped to shreds. Film director Sebastian Doggart claims to have been the last boy caned at Eton, in 1984.
7. Sport is very important and there are competitions between houses within the school and with other schools such as Harrow. The school has even invented some games of its own, such as Eton Fives and the Eton Wall Game. The Duke of Wellington is often incorrectly quoted as saying that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton." There is a report that while passing an Eton cricket match, the Duke commented "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo" and that he was referring to the discipline of sport creating leaders rather than the school itself.
8. Dillibe Onyeama was the first black person to obtain his school-leaving certificate from Eton in 1969. However, while he was there, he experienced a lot of racism (surprise surprise) and published a book about it, which got him banned from the campus. The school would later issue a public apology.
9. As well as sport and classics, pupils can learn languages (traditionally Latin and Greek but also now, modern languages, including Chinese) and music. The school has 8 organs and it's even possible to learn to play the didgeridoo.
10. The dessert Eton Mess and the song Eton Rifles owe their existence to the school. Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of Strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream, which was traditionally served at the annual Cricket match against Harrow. Eton Rifles is a song by The Jam which takes the pee out of Eton's Cadet Force and is a comment on the unfairness of the system whereby privileged Ex-Etonians get all the best jobs. Ironically perhaps, ex-Etonian David Cameron has said that Eton Rifles is one of his favourite songs.

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