Stonyhurst College is a Roman CatholicEnglishJesuitpublic school near Clitheroe, Lancashire, England. It provides boarding and day education to boys and girls aged 13-18. A preparatory school on an adjacent site, St. Mary's Hall, offers education to children aged 3-13.
The story of Stonyhurst starts at St. Omer in France in 1592, where a college was founded by Father Robert Persons SJ for English boys, unable to receive a Catholic education in Elizabethan England. As such it is one of a number of expatriate English schools operating on the European mainland during the centuries when Catholicism was proscribed in England. In 1762, when the French Parliament turned against the Jesuits, the school was forced to move. During subsequent decades, when the Jesuit Order was suppressed in most countries, Stonyhurst was one of the institutions through which it managed to maintain a continuous existence. After St. Omer (still known in Stonyhurst parlance by its old English name of St. Omers, the college settled in Bruges where it continued until 1773 when it was again forced to move, reassembling at Liège. In 1794 yet another move was forced upon the school, and a new home was found at Stonyhurst Hall in Lancashire, given to the school by Thomas Weld, a member of a prominent Roman Catholic family several of whose members had been associated with the school.{{cite web
Its alumni include three Saints, twelve Beatii.e. candidates for canonisation as saints who so far count only as 'Blessed' and seven recipients of the Victoria Cross.
An observatory was added in 1838, and during the 19th century the school prided itself on producing 'gentlemen philosophers'. 'Philosophers' were in fact students pursuing a course of education above high school level at a time when Catholics were forbidden both by English law and also by a Papal prohibition from attending Oxford and Cambridge.
During the 19th century, Stonyhurst was a leading Jesuit cultural centre and also notable for its scientific activities, including the meteorological records of the Observatory which finally closed in the early 1960s. Gas lighting was another early technological innovation at the school. In the late 19th century it claimed to be the 'Catholic Eton' but during the 20th century, it had to share its pre-eminence with other Catholic public schools, particularly Ampleforth and Downside, and its relative remoteness from London was also a disadvantage.
From the 1960s onwards, the school went through a number of changes, partly reflecting those in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, but also attributable in part to the growing secular tone of British society. The number of Jesuit instructors fell steadily, reflecting the changed priorities of Catholic religious orders and the dwindling numbers of the English Jesuit province. Because of these changes, in 1966, another Jesuit boys' public school, Beaumont College, was unable to continue, and it amalgamated with Stonyhurst.
Apart from some retired priests, the Jesuit community at Stonyhurst now consists effectively only of a chaplain. At the same time the school now accepts a substantial percentage of non-Catholic pupils and its links with the English Jesuit order are now relatively slender, though religious functions, retreats, and similar activities maintain the connection.
It is a longstanding practice that students at the school write A.M.D.G. in the top left hand corner of any piece of work they do. It stands for the Latin phrase Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam which means For The Greater Glory Of God. At the end of a piece of work they write L.D.S. in the centre of the page. It stands for Laus Deo Semper which means Praise to God Always. These are both traditional Jesuit mottos.
Unlike most English public schools, Stonyhurst is organised horizontally by year groups (known as playrooms) rather than vertically by houses. Each playroom has an assigned playroom master, with each cohort moving through the playrooms, having a sequence of playroom masters (rather than being allocated into a house with housemaster for their whole time in the school, as happens in other schools).
All of the accommodation for boarders is contained within the college, under a single roof, with separate areas for each playroom.
Year Names
Currently, Stonyhurst has the following year names (with approximate ages):
Rather than houses, Stonyhurst categorises pupils into Lines. The Lines and colours are as follows: * Campion (Red) (after St Edmund Campion) * St Omers (Yellow) (after St Omer, the town the school was founded in) * Shireburn (Green) (after the Shireburn family that built Stonyhurst) * Weld (Blue) (after the Weld family that donated Stonyhurst)
Stonyhurst has been the Alma mater for twelve international rugby players from England (4), Ireland (6), USA (1) and Italy (1). Most recently they include: Iain Balshaw and Kyran Bracken who both played for England when they won the World Cup. Will Greenwood was also on the team and although he did not attend Stonyhurst he did attend the prep-school.
