Comments made by the new provost of Eton College have provoked outrage on social media.
Sir Nicholas Coleridge succeeded Lord Waldegrave to become the chair of governors at the prestigious Berkshire boarding school in September 2024.
The King approved the appointment of Sir Nicholas after the governors of the private boys’ school, known as “fellows”, began the process of selecting a successor to recommend to the Prime Minister.
Sir Nicholas, who was educated at Eton College, is chair of the V&A Museum and will chair the Historic Royal Palaces upon relinquishing that appointment.
The 66-year-old, who co-chaired the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant, was knighted for services to museums, publishing and the creative industries in the 2022 Birthday Honours list.
But comments he made in The Telegraph have provoked outrage on social media.
In the article, he noted that he is “bound to say that if I meet somebody that I have never met before – for example, if I am travelling abroad, or through work or something – and it emerges that they were at Eton, I feel an interest in them that is multiplied by at least 10.
“There are certain people who weren’t there, and I do admit that in some strange and awful way I think, “Now, why weren’t they?” and that it counts against them slightly.”
Reaction to the comments on X (formerly Twitter) have flooded in since, with Becky Barrow questioning whether the school could have appointed someone with a slightly more open mind.
Dr Fern Riddell, meanwhile, notes that Eton is an all-boys school, which suggests that Sir Nicholas has never met a woman as interesting as a boy who went to Eton.
“This is an absolutely rabid level of misogyny, and intellectually infantilising for the boys now in his care”, she notes, and it’s difficult to disagree with her!
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