Prince Philip’s final school report from Gordonstoun, written in December 1938 by the school’s founder, Dr. Kurt Hahn, and not expected to be accessible to the public until 2041, has been released 15 years ahead of schedule from the National Archives in Kew, confirmed by GB News published this morning at 9:20 a.m. The report describes a 17-year-old who would become the Duke of Edinburgh, the longest-serving royal consort in British history, as “a born leader” with “unusual courage and endurance” who struggled to control his temper.
Hahn, a Jewish-German progressive educationalist who established Gordonstoun in the Scottish Highlands in 1934 after fleeing Nazi Germany, wrote that Philip was “universally liked and respected” and was selected as school captain, which is the Gordonstoun equivalent of head boy and which Philip achieved in the same year the report was written. The school captain assessment and the “born leader” characterization are consistent with what Philip became. The “susceptible to flashes of anger” characterization is consistent with what biographers have documented about his subsequent decades.
Philip attended Gordonstoun during a period that included the school’s early years under Hahn’s influence and the approach of the Second World War, during which Philip would serve in the Royal Navy and be mentioned in dispatches for his role at the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941. He was 17 when Hahn wrote the report. He was described as possessing qualities that would define a 73-year royal career. He was also described as having a temper, which is the kind of biographical detail that the National Archives releases ahead of schedule and which GB News leads with.
The documents were not expected to be public until 2041. Philip died in 2021 at age 99. The report has been in the archives since he was a teenager.
A teenager’s school report from 1938 was released this morning. It was accurate.
When the school report of the longest-serving royal consort calls him a born leader with a temper and arrives in the archives 15 years early, what exactly did the headmaster know?
Sources
GB News: Prince Philip was a ‘born leader’ but had issues with his anger, school report reveals
