St. Edmund's College, Ware

History

Douai: 1568–1793

St Edmund's College is a continuation on English soil of the English College that was founded by William Cardinal Allen at Douai in Flanders, France, in 1568. Originally intended as a seminary to prepare priests to work in England to keep Catholicism alive, it soon also became a boys' school for Catholics, who were debarred from running such institutions in England. Many of its students, both priests and laymen, returned to England to be put to death under the anti-Catholic laws. The college includes amongst its former alumni 20 canonised and 138 beatified martyrs.

Silkstead, Twyford, Standon and Old Hall Green: 1662–1793

A small Catholic school was started in Hampshire in the second half of the 17th century. It was opened by a priest at Silkstead some time before 1662, and transferred to Twyford, near Winchester. It was conducted in great secrecy, and was for boys of preparatory-school age who intended to proceed to the English College to complete more advanced studies. The poet Alexander Pope was a student at the school, although he did not proceed to Douay. Twyford was closed in 1745 on account of anti-Catholic feeling caused by the Jacobite rising, but Bishop Richard Challoner re-established the school in Hertfordshire at Standon Lordship in 1753, in a property owned by the Aston family. In 1769, Bishop James Talbot moved the school to its current site at Old Hall Green, near Puckeridge, and it became known as Old Hall Green Academy.

Old Hall Green: 1793–present

The work of the English College in Douay was brought to an end by the French Revolution, and in October 1793 the college property was confiscated. Professors and students came back to England, where Relief Acts had considerably relaxed the penal laws against Catholics. John Douglass, Vicar Apostolic of the London District, realised that the time had come to replace the English College, and the earliest refugees joined the students at Old Hall Green Academy. On 16 November 1793 – the feast of St Edmund of Canterbury – a new college was instituted. This was the beginning of a restoration of Catholic colleges and seminaries throughout England. Students from the North had established a separate foundation, which is now Ushaw College, near Durham by the time that the remaining staff and students arrived from Douay by 1795 to join St Edmund's College.

A gift of £10,000 from John Sone, a Hampshire Catholic, enabled St Edmund's to be established in new buildings, designed by James Taylor of Islington, who had himself been a student at the Old Hall Green Academy. A chapel and refectory were added in 1805 by Bishop Poynter, who succeeded Dr. Stapleton as president in 1801. Thomas Griffiths, Vicar Apostolic of the London District, was the college's president from 1818 until 1834, and did much to give the college a sound financial basis, culminating in a project for a large Gothic chapel designed by Pugin, completed in 1853. Nevertheless, the fortunes of the college varied throughout the 19th century and at times it seemed as if it might have to close. It was the seminary for the "London district" until 1850, when it became the joint property of the Sees of Westminster.

The era of Vicars Apostolic ended in 1850 with the restoration of the Hierarchy. Strachey, in his Eminent Victorians, portrays the college as the scene of a dispute between Henry Edward Manning and Dr Errington over whether a recusant or an ultramontane style should prevail there, and ultimately over who was to succeed Wiseman as second Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

In 1869, Manning, now Archbishop, set up a seminary in Hammersmith, and for the first time St Edmund's ceased to be a theological college. In 1874, the junior boys were separated from the rest of the college into St Hugh's Preparatory School, in a house originally built by Pugin for the Oxford convert William George Ward. The prep school has since been renamed St Edmund's Preparatory School.

Houses

Heads of house, assisted by a team of tutors, provide continuity of care throughout students' time at the college and are the normal means of contact between the college and parents. House spirit is encouraged through various inter-house competitions, sporting and cultural, and through house celebrations, ranging from formal dinners to summer barbecues.

There are five houses (years of foundation in brackets):

Challoner (1922)

Douglass (1922)

Pole (1990)

Poynter (1970)

Talbot (1922)

There are five former houses (years of existence in brackets):

Allen Hall (1922–1975)

Griffiths (1972–1984)

Junior House (1945–1953 and 1961–1993)

Margaret Pole (1975–1990)

Stapleton (1975–1996)

Boarding

Pupils may choose to board full time or on certain days of the week. There are two main boarding houses: Allen Hall (boys) and Garvey's (girls). The accommodation areas are supervised by residential staff.

O Beate mi Edmunde

The college anthem was composed by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman for the solemn enshrinement of the Relic of St Edmund in the college chapel. The song has a total of 30 verses arranged into three decades, the first and third decades are each preceded and concluded with the following chorus, and the second decade with a variation of it. It is sung every year on the three days before 16 November, St Edmund's Day, when St Edmund is remembered. Ten verses are sung each day in chapel of what is called the Triduum.

O Beate mi Edmunde x2,

Sic pro me ad Filium Dei,

Cum Maria preces funde x2,

Ut per vos sim placens Ei.

The Edmundian Association

The Edmundian Association was founded in 1853 and has members throughout the world. Its aim is to maintain a bond between the college and its alumni, and among members. Membership is available to past pupils of the college and their parents, parents of current pupils, and current and past members of staff.

Notable former pupils

Chizzy Akudolu (born 1973) – actress on BBC drama Holby City

Jimmy Alcock (born 1932) – British-Venezuelan architect

Francis Barraud (1856–1924) – painter of the His Master's Voice trademark

Alan Burns (1887–1980) – diplomat

Michel Jean Cazabon (1813–1888) – artist

Siobhan Daly (living) – producer and artistic director

Sikhanyiso Dlamini (born 1987) – Princess of Swaziland

Simon Geoghegan (born 1968) – Irish international rugby player

Everard Green (1844–1926) – Rouge Dragon Pursuivant and Somerset Herald, College of Arms

Edward Henry (1850–1931) – pioneer of fingerprint usage in crime investigations

Tommie Hoban (born 1994) – professional footballer

Javier Iturriaga (born 1983) – professional footballer

James Lynam Molloy (1837–1909) – poet

Laurence Meynell (1899–1989) – novelist and children's writer

Nick Nieland (born 1972) – Commonwealth Games javelin gold medallist

Mervyn O'Gorman (1871–1958) – aeronautical engineer