SOME DISTINGUISHED ETONIANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 72

SOME DISTINGUISHED ETONIANS.

When Lord Curzon paid his eloquent tribute at Calcutta a short time ago to his old school he might, had not modesty stood in the way, have added that during the last 100 years Eton has supplied nine out of twenty-two men who have filled the exalted post of Viceroy of India, which he himself has adorned so well ; while Harrow, Eton's nearest rival, can only claim two.

But Eton has many records of which she is even more proud. She has reared more Prime Ministers than all the other public schools put together; indeed, since the faraway days of Queen Anne, Premiers, Leaders of the Commons, and Leaders of the Opposition have been mostly Etonians, beginning with St. John and Walpole, and ending with Gladstone. Salisbury, Rosebery, and Balfour. During one period- of 10 years in George Ill's reign no fewer than five of Eton's sons were at the head of the State.

And, again, has she not a right to be proud of the fact that she supplied' 16 cf the generals who fought under Lord Roberts in our recent war, and that she had trained more than 1100 of the officers and men in our South African army? No wonder her children are proud of their Alma Mater, and that they send their sons to her, generation after generation. Tins loyalty of families to a school is more marked in the case of Eton than in that of any of her great rivals. It is said that for a good hundred years Eton has always had at least one Selwyn on her books ; and she counted 19 Coleridges between 1791 and 1877.

One of her great hereditary families is that of Fox. which for several generations was intimately associated with her. Sir Stephen Fox's younger son, Henry, later the first Lord. Holland, was the pioneer Etonian of the family ; and among his schoolfellows, it is interesting to recall, were Pitt, Fielding, and Hanbury Williams. It was Lord Holland, by the way, who gave his brilliant son, Charles James Fox, a four months' holiday from school and introduced him to the dissipations of Paris. On his return to Eton after this spell of liberty the lad was greeted by the head master with a, sound flogging and by his schoolfellows with ridicule.

The Stanleys have for much more than a century sent their sons to the famous school on the Thames. The greatest of all. who was thrice Prime Minister, left Eton in the Upper Division of the Pifth Form ; and the present Earl Derby, once Governor-General of Canada, sat in the same form with a later Viceroy of India (Lord Lansdowne) and a Premier (MiArthur Balfour).

The connection of the Lytteltonb with Eton has been practically unbroken since

the first lord wrestled with Caesar and Viigil there nearly tvo centuries ago; and many of them have acquitted themselves brilliantly in later years, though none more so than the late lord, who was bracketed, senior classics with Dr Vauglian, .:nd his son, the present Colonial Secretary. The first of the long line of Etonian Selwyns was William, cousin of George Selwvn, the famous wit, and himself, in after~ years, a distinguished lawyer. Of his four sons, who all followed him to Eton, one became Primate of New Zealand and an English bishop, and another was an eminent Lord Justice. Of the 19 Coleridges who were Eton scholars down to the year 1877, one was the editor of Coleridge's " Table Talk " ; his son Herbert was Newcastle Scholar ; his elder brother was Sir John Coleridge, an able judge; while perhaps the greatest of them all was Lord Coleridge, the late Chief Justice of England. To mention but- one more out of many families who have been cradled at Eton, John Sumner became head master and provost of the school at which he had been a pupil ; his nephew died' head master of Harrow, and two grandsons were respectively Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury.