The Pop Society / The Eton Society

 ABOUT ETON, SEE ALSO:

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/08/about-eton-by-adam-nicolson-eric.html

 

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-modern-eton-college.html

 

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-clique-of-pseudo-adults-britains.html

 

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/07/abolish-eton-labour-groups-aim-to-strip.html

 

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2017/03/sunday-images-thirty-years-on-private.html

 

https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-old-boys-decline-and-rise-of-public.html

 

 

The History of Pop Society

https://www.newandlingwood.com/the-editorial/post/eton-pop-waistcoats

 

Photo by Rhubarb & Custard

Pop, more properly known as The Eton society and reserved for elite prefects, has been known to include the most charming and popular students, with such members as Prince William, Boris Johnson and Eddie Redmayne in their ranks.

 

Founded in 1811 as a debating society, Pop originally went by the name “Popina”, from the Latin “Cook Shop” which is where the boys used to meet. In its prime, it was the ultimate networking tool and could open the most incredible doors. Over the years its power and privileges have grown.

 

Historically, Pop was predominantly filled with athletes rather than intellectuals, their justification being that you had to stand out through your leadership qualities.

 

The rules were altered in 1987 and again in 2005 so that the new intake are not elected solely by the existing year and a committee of masters. Members of Pop are entitled to wear checked spongebag trousers and a waistcoat of their own design, which means football shirts, team crests, national flags, fluorescent colours, Hermes scarves and even sequins are not uncommon. As one former member of Pop put it "your mother's old evening gown, or a bit of old curtain"

 

POP

Historically, only members of Pop were entitled to furl their umbrellas or sit on the wall on the Long Walk, in front of the main building. However, this tradition has died out. They perform roles at many of the routine events of the school year, including school plays, parents' evenings and other official events. Pop: officially known as 'Eton Society', a highly glamorous high-status elite society comprising the most popular, well-regarded, confident and able senior boys. It is thus truly an elite within an elite. It is a driving ambition of many capable Eton schoolboys to be elected to Pop, and many high-performers who are refused entry to this elite consider their careers at Eton a failure. Boris Johnson was a member of Pop, whilst David Cameron (unlike his elder brother Alexander) failed to be elected, a fact which possibly fed their later political rivalry. Over the years its power and privileges have grown. Pop is the oldest self-electing society at Eton. The rules were altered in 1987 and again in 2005 so that the new intake are not elected solely by the existing year and a committee of masters. Members of Pop wear white and black houndstooth-checked trousers, a starched stick-up collar and white bow-tie, and are entitled to wear flamboyant waistcoats, often of their own design. Historically, only members of Pop were entitled to furl their umbrellas or sit on the wall on the Long Walk, in front of the main building. However, this tradition has died out. They perform roles at many of the routine events of the school year, including School Plays, parents' evenings and other official events, and generally maintain order. Notable ex-members of Pop include Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (unlike his younger brother Prince Harry, who failed to be elected); Eddie Redmayne; and Boris Johnson.

 

A very exclusive club called pop

 

ETON is the most elite school in Britain – and its sixth form society is even more selective...

 

By BILL COLES

00:00, Thu, Mar 17, 2011

https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/235077/A-very-exclusive-club-called-pop

 

Members of Pop are permitted to wear any waistcoat they please

 

They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the world’s gaudiest prefects – and when I was a callow 17-year-old it was one of my very slight regrets that I was never elected a member of Eton College’s most prestigious club. The Eton Society – or Pop as it’s known – this year celebrates its 200th anniversary and though Prince William and his uncle Earl Spencer will both have been invited to the £250-a-head party in its honour, I will sadly not be among their number.

 

As ever, it seems as if all the rankand- file Etonians have been left out on the street, peering in through the windows to catch a glimpse of our old prefects making merry round the fireside. At first glance Pop looks like nothing more than a very posh sixth form club. But Eton (with fees of £30,000 a year) is still regarded by many as the top elite school in the country – one that has provided 19 prime ministers (not least our current one) as well as old boys ranging from George Orwell and James Bond author Ian Fleming to Boris Johnson and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. And if Eton is an educational elite then Pop is an even smaller elite within it – one that elects its own members, who form not just an exclusive network but one that doesn’t always admit the members you might expect.

 

 Mr Cameron, for instance, was not a Popper – so at least I’m in good company. Not that I’d ever have wanted to join the clubbable chaps in Pop; I was far too obstreperous and cheeky for that. But their uniform, on the other hand… well they looked like peacocks strutting among a horde of black crows and to a stripling teenager it all seemed rather exotic. Here, in full, was the uniform of an Eton Popper: a black tailcoat with braid piping; spongebag trousers in a houndstooth check; and a starched wing collar with a white (hand-tied) bow tie.

 

The uniform would usually be capped off with a thick cow-lick of hair, spit-polished black lace-ups pickers), plus a gardenia or a rose in the button-hole. While the rest of us schoolboys had been shoe-horned into grubby black waistcoats the Poppers were allowed to wear any waistcoat they pleased. least a dozen and you can only imagine the glorious oneupmanship that was involved.

 

I remember waistcoats of green leather, waistcoats spangled with Pearly King buttons, and even a hideous fur electric pink number. Prince William, when he was a Popper, tended towards the staid and I believe his most daring outfit was a patriotic Union Jack. To all intents and purposes the Poppers don exactly the same sort of clothes that the gentlemen will be wearing at next month’s royal wedding – though having been in tails for at least four years a Popper can carry off the look with much more ease than the chaps who’ve hired their kit from Moss Bros.

 

Once you realise the sheer showiness of the Pop uniform it is all too easy to understand how David Cameron came to be quite so enamoured with the Bullingdon Club at Oxford. For, if he had been elected into Pop he might never had quite such an urge to dress like a foppish Bullingdon blue-blood (though London Mayor Boris Johnson was in both Pop and the Bullingdon Club). Within Eton, Pop was a self-electing club for the sports stars, which certainly did not include me, and the hearty good guys. There were about25 of them and they were charged with keeping the 1,300 other boys for such misdemeanours as not being properly dressed, or even “socking” (eating) in the street.

 

I still recall how, when I was 13, an enormous Popper accosted me in the street for not wearing any cuff links. “Have a pound in my room by lock‑up,” he told me. Ostensibly all this loot went to charity, though doubtless the Poppers were just using it for extra beer money at the school pub, Tap. Speaking to contemporaries who were members, one is struck by the fact that while Pop is exclusive it does not necessarily bother itself with the most opulent surroundings. “The Poppers had one room which was quite fusty but it did have a huge television,” said one.

 

“It was a bit like a St James’s club in that boys were put up for election but if there was a single blackball against them then they weren’t in. Things have changed more recently and now the Eton masters have a right of veto. You probably don’t get quite so many bad eggs. “When a boy got elected into Pop we’d all charge round to his house making a lot of noise. His room might be trashed and he’d usually end up in the bath covered in beans, spaghetti, eggs and whatever else we could find in his locker.

 

Pop was predominantly filled with sports buffs and swells and that’s still pretty accurate to this day. It appeals to people who like to dress up as a peacock.” Pop was founded in 1811 and it was originally a debating society and had the name “Popina”, from the Latin for “Tea-Shop” which is where the boys used to meet. In its heyday Pop was the ultimate networking tool and could open the most incredible doors. One can even see Pop’s shadow hanging over Prime Minister Harold Macmillan when he culled half his cabinet during “The Night of the Long Knives” in the late Fifties.

 

It’s said that Macmillan sacked half his friends from Pop – only to replace them with the other half. Fagging at Eton is now a distant memory but in my time in the Eighties a Popper could fag off any boy on the street, sending him off to do any chore he pleased. I still remember my outrage when a Popper took offence at my smirking face and sent me to Windsor to buy him a postcard for his mother. Another extraordinary aspect of the society was that 50 years ago Poppers were empowered to deliver a “Pop tan” – where reprobate boys would be flogged by every member of Pop.

 

 One of the more famous recipients of such a beating was the late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith. I was told: “Even when he was quite young Jimmy Goldsmith was very precocious. He’d think nothing of going up to London to place bets on races and often he’d place bets for other boys too. Word got out that he’d been welching on the junior boys and he was given a Pop tan. I know – because my father was one of the Poppers who caned him.”

 

He added: “One of the strangethings about Pop is that it never goes away. You find it cropping up in a lot of Etonians’ obituaries. These are people who may well have won VCs or who are captains of industry – and yet for some reason the fact that they were a member of Pop is seen to be on a par with anything else that they’ve done.” It will be interesting to see who turns out for Pop’s 200th anniversary this summer. It’s being held at Fellows’ Eyot, a field next to the Thames – though at £250 a head I hope they’ll be drinking the very best of the college wine cellar.

 

There’s no chance of an invite for me though I have been invited to talk to Eton’s Literary Society next week. I’ll be having dinner with some enthused boys and also my favourite master (still there 30 years later)! There won’t be a Popper in sight. And I know which dinner I’d rather attend.

 

Bill Coles was at Eton from 1978 to 1982. He was in the same year as Boris Johnson, Earl Spencer, fraudster Darius Guppy and Thai Prime Minister Mark Vejjajiva.