3-028-607 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Fourth of June at Eton: the boats leaving the Brocas for Surley Hall, 1870. 'The annual festival of Eton College and School, appointed for June 4, the birthday of King George III., was celebrated on Saturday with entire success. The weather was fine, and there was a numerous attendance of visitors from London and elsewhere, including many "old Eton fellows," and many more parents or friends of the present pupils...The procession of boats up the Thames...took place as usual, between six and seven o'clock. The Eton bank of the river was thronged with carriages and spectators on foot, from the railway bridge down to the town bridge. The boats go up in order to the railway bridge, then row down to the town bridge again, and, turning round the eyot, pass in order up to the locks. The scene in our Illustration is taken from the railway bridge. It represents the boats starting down thence to the town bridge. The third boat is the "band boat," which accompanies the "eights," all the while playing the most lively tunes, and making a "jarring harmony" with the bells from the curfew tower of Windsor Castle. The names of the boats are the Monarch, Victory, Prince of Wales, Britannia, Dreadnought, Thetis, Hibernia, St. George, and Defiance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.