page_title: Stonyhurst College
section_title: The college
hierarchical_section_title: Stonyhurst College / History / The college
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Habsburg Netherlands.Français&#160;: Carte des Pays-Bas des Habsbourg
context_page_description: Stonyhurst College is a coeducational Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. The school has been fully co-educational since 1999.
  The college was founded in 1593 by Father Robert Persons SJ at St Omer, at a time when penal laws prohibited Catholic education in England. After moving to Bruges in 1762 and Liège in 1773, the college moved to Stonyhurst in 1794. It provides boarding and day education to approximately 450 boys and girls aged 13–18. On an adjacent site, its preparatory school, St Mary's Hall, provides education for boys and girls aged 3–13.
  The school combines an academic curriculum with extra-curricular pursuits. Roman Catholicism plays a central role in college life, with emphasis on both prayer and service, according to the Jesuit philosophy.
  The school's alumni include three Saints, twelve Beati, seven archbishops, seven Victoria Cross winners, a Peruvian president, a Bolivian president, a New Zealand prime minister, a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence and several writers, sportsmen, and politicians.
context_section_description: The story of the school starts at St Omer in what was then the Spanish Netherlands in 1593, where a college, under the Royal Patronage of Philip II of Spain, was founded by Fr Robert Persons SJ for English boys unable to receive a Catholic education in Elizabethan England. As such it was one of several expatriate English schools operating on the European mainland. In 1762, the Jesuits were forced to flee and re-established their school at Bruges. The school was moved in 1773 to Liège, where it operated for two decades before moving to Stonyhurst on 29 August 1794.  Schooling resumed on 22 October that year.
  The college flourished during the 19th century: the Society of Jesus was re-established in Britain at Stonyhurst in 1803, and over the century, student numbers rose from the original twelve migrants from Liège. By the turn of the following century, it had become England's largest Catholic college. Stonyhurst Hall underwent extensive alterations and additions to accommodate these numbers; the Old South Front was constructed in 1810, only to be demolished and replaced with much grander buildings in the 1880s. A seminary was constructed on the estate, and an observatory and meteorological station erected in the gardens. The 20th century saw the gradual hiring of a mostly lay staff, as the number of Jesuits declined. The seminary at St Mary's Hall was closed, and the school discontinued its education of university-aged philosophers. With the closure of Beaumont College in 1967 and the transfer away from the Society of Jesus of Mount St Mary's College, Spinkhill, Derbyshire, in 2006, Stonyhurst became the sole Jesuit public school in England.
  Since the Second World War, the buildings have been refurbished or developed. Additions include new science buildings in the 1950s and 1960s, a new boarding wing in the 1960s, a new swimming pool in the 1980s and Weld House in 2010. The school became fully co-educational in 1999.
caption: Map of the Spanish Netherlands in 1590
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