Blocked toilets Close Eton, boarding school for British elite sons
Britain’s first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, attended Eton College. So did Boris Johnson and David Cameron and more than a dozen others.
Prince William and Prince Harry went there. So did the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the novelists Henry Fielding and George Orwell, the actors Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, and the economist John Maynard Keynes.
And they all used the toilet.
But the current group of boys at the elite boarding school will not do that in the near future.
On Tuesday, Eton pupils did not return to school as planned after the winter break. The flooding of the Thames left the sewers overloaded and the toilets no longer working.
“Following major flooding in the region, Thames Water sewers, which serve the town of Eton, have overflowed,” the school said in a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday. “As a result, boys were unable to return for the planned start of the school year on January 9, and the college moved to remote learning. We are in regular contact with Thames Water as they try to resolve the situation, and we look forward to welcoming the boys back as soon as possible.”
The statement discreetly avoided using the word “toilet.”
“The sewers in the center of Eton cannot cope with the arrival of almost 1,350 boys,” reads a slightly more frank letter to parents. reported by Bloomberg and other news media. It costs 50,000 British pounds a year, or about $63,500, for boys aged 13 to 18 to attend the school just outside London.
There has been significant flooding in England this month following heavy rainfall. The Thames reached water level in some places Haven’t seen her in ten years.
The utility company Thames Water had warned earlier in the week that weeks of rainfall and high groundwater levels had “put enormous pressure on our sewers and pumping stations. Water is entering our network above and below ground, and flows from flooded rivers are exacerbating the problem in some areas.”
In a statement on Eton’s closure on Wednesday The Press Association, the company said: “We are sorry to the staff and students who have been affected. Our teams will carry out a clean-up operation in the coming days once river levels have fallen.”
Of course, the bathroom situation at Eton is not the most pressing problem in Britain. But the incongruity of such a great institution being sidelined by an everyday problem cannot help but raise a smile here and there.
Eton dates back to 1440, when it was founded by none other than Henry VI. (His later deposition and death in the Tower of London were unrelated.)
The school initially offered only Latin courses, then Greek and other subjects added slowly (for example, mathematics did not arrive until 1851).
The school’s traditions include wearing a formal uniform, including a tailcoat and stiff collar. Another example is the Eton wall game, where boys push a ball along a wall for an hour according to arcane rules, with most games ending with a score of 0-0.
While these traditions continue, the school has attempts made to modernize, for example, celebrating Black and LGBTQ+ History Months and appointing a director of inclusivity education. Although Eton still attracts many wealthy, well-connected students, it has made efforts to add more scholarship students.
But for now, that’s all on hold due to a more earthly problem.