The heartbreaking reason Prince Harry struggled to fit in at Eton while brother William thrived

Prince Harry didn’t seem to be a big fan of Eton (Image: Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images)

As Prince George prepares to begin a new chapter at Eton College, the prestigious school has once again turned attention to the royal family’s own history there.

The 13-year-old prince is following in the footsteps of his father, Prince William, who attended Eton himself. George will spend the next stage of his education at the boarding school and become a full-time boarder.

For William, Eton was a place where he was able to establish a life of his own. But his younger brother, Prince Harry, later revealed that his experience at the school was far more difficult.

The Duke of Sussex has previously made clear that he did not feel he fitted in at Eton, despite taking part in a wide range of sports.

Harry struggled to find where he belonged

Harry played a lot of sports at the boarding school (Image: Kirsty Wigglesworth-Pool/Getty Images)

In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry explained that he initially decided sport would be his way of finding his place at Eton.

He described how the school’s sporty boys were divided into two groups: “dry bobs” and “wet bobs.”

Dry bobs took part in sports including cricket, football, rugby and polo, while wet bobs were involved in rowing, sailing and swimming.

Harry described himself as someone who fell somewhere between the two groups.

“I was a dry who occasionally got wet,” he wrote.

He played many of the sports associated with the dry bobs, but rugby became his favourite.

“I played every dry sport, though rugby captured my heart,” Harry recalled.

He described rugby as a game that gave him an outlet for his anger, saying he did not feel pain in the same way as the other boys and that this made him intimidating on the pitch.

Despite his involvement in sport, however, Harry said he still struggled to feel that he truly belonged.

William wanted a life of his own

Harry also recalled another painful part of his transition to Eton: his relationship with his older brother.

While Harry was entering the school where William had already spent two years, William did not want his younger brother following him around.

According to Harry’s account in Spare, William told him to pretend they did not know each other while at school.

Harry explained that William had come to see Eton as his own sanctuary.

“Willy told me to pretend I didn’t know him,” Harry wrote.

William, he recalled, had spent the previous two years building his own friendships and social circle at the school. He did not want his younger brother constantly beside him.

“For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary,” Harry wrote.

“No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life, and he wasn’t willing to give that up.”

For Harry, arriving at Eton therefore meant navigating not only the challenges of a new boarding school but also the painful realization that his older brother wanted to maintain a separate world there.

George begins his own Eton chapter

George’s arrival at Eton comes years after both William and Harry experienced the school in very different ways.

Like his father, George will become a full-time boarder, beginning a significant new stage of his education away from home.

But while his father’s experience at Eton is remembered as an important part of his youth, Harry’s recollections in Spare offer a very different picture — one shaped by his struggle to find where he belonged and by the distance his older brother wanted to maintain.

Now, as George prepares to make the same journey, the royal family’s complicated history with Eton has once again come into focus.