OUR ANCESTORS V. Nickalls, Oars, Wars and Horses Oppidan Wall XI Losers to the King’s Scholars, St. Andrew’s Day 1890 T.G. Matheson, - Luxmore, L. Caldecott, Z. Erskine, H.A. Cooper - Dawson, Vivian Nickalls, R.E.R. Brocklebank, H.B. Christian, F.J. Dupuis E.H.C. Bald, - Platt Muttlebury94 were also bestowed upon Eton students. They often lasted a lifetime. Games at Eton Another distinguished Eton old boy,95 Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wel- 94 See Chapter 15. 95 “Students in the U.S. ‘graduate’ at the end of their studies. There is no similar tradition in UK schools. At Eton, all boys ‘take leave’ from the head master, which involves going to see him individually during the last term for a ten minute lington, victor over Napoleon and later Brit- ish Prime Minister, is reputed to have said, “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”96 chat, during which he gives them a leaving pre- sent. Traditionally, it is a book of poems by Thomas Gray, including the famous Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. And that’s it.” – Frank Grenfell, personal correspondence, 2007 96 Bartlett, John, Familiar Quotations, Eleventh Edition, Little, Brown, Boston, 1946, p. 293 “Ironically, most of Wellington’s officers went to Harrow.” – Charles Luckman, 2010. 37
