Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall
Encyclopedia
Stonyhurst St Mary's Hall (commonly known as S.M.H.) is the preparatory school
Preparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...

 to Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

. It is an independent co-educational Catholic school founded by the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

 (Jesuits). It is primarily a day school but has some boarders. As the lineal descendant of Hodder Place the school lays claim to be the oldest preparatory school in the country.

It is situated on an adjacent site to Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

, outside the small village of Hurst Green
Hurst Green, Lancashire
Hurst Green is a small village in the Ribble Valley district of Lancashire, England, connected in its history to the Jesuit school, Stonyhurst College...

, near Clitheroe
Clitheroe
Clitheroe is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England. It is 1½ miles from the Forest of Bowland and is often used as a base for tourists in the area. It has a population of 14,697...

 in rural Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

 and next to the hamlet of Woodfields.

Jesuit College

Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

 was founded in 1593 as the English Jesuit College at St Omers in present-day France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 at a time when Catholic education was prohibited by law in England. Having moved to Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

 in 1762 and then Liege in 1773, due to the persecution of the Jesuit order which ran the school, it finally settled at Stonyhurst
Stonyhurst
Stonyhurst is the name of a rural estate owned by the Society of Jesus near Clitheroe in Lancashire, England. It is dominated by Stonyhurst College, its preparatory school Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall and the parish Church of St Peter's.-The Estate:...

 in 1794. An attempt had been made to found a preparatory school to the College at St Omers, which would have been based in Boulogne
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....

 but this was abandoned and ultimately thwarted by the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in 1762. In 1768 new buildings were erected for a preparatory school at Bruges; this 'Little College' was closed in 1775, two years after the migration of the College to Liège. Thirteen years after the settlement in England the preparatory school was finally established in 1807.

Hodder Place

The Stonyhurst Estate donated by an old boy of the College at St Omers, Thomas Weld, included the Shireburn family Hall and a large building on the edge of the River Hodder
River Hodder
The River Hodder is a river in Lancashire, England. The river is a County Biological Heritage Site.It rises on White Hill and flows for approximately 23 miles to the River Ribble, of which it is the largest tributary...

, Hodder Place. The latter opened as a Jesuit novitiate
Novitiate
Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....

 when the Jesuits were formally re-established in Britain in 1803. Four years later, preparatory, the youngest pupils in the school, which had settled in the Hall, were transferred to Hodder Place. It was not until 1855 however, that the preparatory school was formally opened. The building underwent extension in 1836 and again in 1869 when two towers were constructed on either side.

Hodder Place continued to function as the preparatory school to the College until 1970 when it was shut and converted into residential flats. A rugby pitch still remains adjacent to the building and is used today by St Mary's Hall both for sports and, during the summer, as a campsite.

St Mary's Hall

Between 1828 and 1830, a new building in Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 style, was constructed closer to the college and opened as the new novitiate, St Mary's Hall. In the nineteenth century, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...

 trained as a priest there, and in the twentieth century, John Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien also trained there.

The building was extended with two symmetrical wings on either side in the 1850s when the symmetry of the College's south front was also finally completed.

St Mary's Hall continued to function as a seminary until 1926 when the seminarians were moved to Heythrop Hall in Oxfordshire. The building lay derelict until the English College moved in for the duration of the War. After their return to Rome, Figures Playroom was transferred from the College to St Mary's Hall, which opened as a middle school to Stonyhurst in 1946. When Hodder Place was closed in 1970, the pupils were moved across to St Mary's Hall to form Hodder Playroom. As successor to Hodder Place, SMH has a claim to be the oldest surviving preparatory school in Britain.

Since the addition of wings and the chapel extension in the nineteenth century, the buildings of St Mary's Hall changed comparatively little, except due to extensive fire damage in the 1980s, which destroyed much of the building's wooden panelling. In 1993, as part of the Stonyhurst Centenaries, celebrating the four-hundredth anniversary of the school's founding and the two-hundredth anniversary of its settlement at Stonyhurst the year later, a new state-of-the-art theatre was built in the grounds, the Centenaries Theatre. Since then, the old theatre has been transformed into a new entrance and library, and, with the transition to co-education in 1997, girls dormitories have been created in the old craft, design and technology attic, and new changing facilities for girls created at the back of the Sports Hall.

Hodder House

In 2004, the old gymnasium was converted into new nursery and reception facilities, and named Hodder House. It educates children aged 3–8, making it now possible to undergo fifteen years of education at Stonyhurst.

Rebranding

Until 2007, SMH was officially known as "St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst". The new Headmaster of the College, Andrew Johnson, insisted that a new name was necessary to bring the Stonyhurst campus closer together; SMH is now officially known as "Stonyhurst St Mary's Hall".

Religious Life

St Mary's Hall is a Roman Catholic school, overseen by the Jesuit order. As such, the Jesuit ethos pervades the life of the school, with emphasis upon spiritual development, reasoning skills and the creation of Men and Women for Others.

Mass is celebrated for the whole school on feast days, prayers are said at morning assembly, and night prayers in the chapel bring the day to a close. Charity is encouraged through the observance of CAFOD
CAFOD
The Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, previously known as the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, is a United Kingdom-based international aid agency working to alleviate poverty and suffering in developing. It is funded by the Catholic community in England and Wales, the UK government...

 lunches, where money saved from simplifying the menu is given to charity, and through the school's own charity "Children for Children". Each year St Mary's Hall plays host to the "Stonyhurst Children's Holiday Trust" week, when children with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds are looked after by pupils from the College.

St Mary's Hall has its own chapel, where Mass is said, as well as the Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St...

 during Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

 and the Rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...

 throughout October and May. A portable altar also enables the Centenaries Theatre to be used for school masses.

Religious iconography is present throughout the school. A statue of the Sacred Heart
Sacred Heart
The Sacred Heart is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity....

, restored by the College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

 stonemason in 2008, stands atop the entrance to the old Jesuit escape tunnel in the garden; a statue of Mary and a mosaic altar occupy a position beneath the main staircase in the hallway; there is a grotto beside the stone steps adjacent to the building, where night prayers are said during the Summer Term; and there are statues in the playrooms, and crosses in every classroom and dormitory.

It is a long-standing tradition for pupils to write 'May Verses'. These are poems written in honour of Mary, Mother of Jesus. During the month of May they adorn the school's main staircase.

As at the College, pupils write A.M.D.G.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam or ad majorem Dei gloriam, also rendered as the abbreviation AMDG, is the Latin motto of the Society of Jesus, a religious order within the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church...

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 To 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 mottoes.

Religious Education is compulsory for all pupils at the school.

Since the opening of Hodder House in 2004, the nativity, performed by the youngest members of the school, has become an annual fixture on the calendar.

The Playroom System

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 college, as happens in other schools).

Hodder House
  • Nursery (3-4)
  • Reception (4-5)
  • Year 1 (5-6)
  • Year 2 (6-7)


Preparatory Playroom
  • Lower Preparatory ('Lower Prep', 7-8)
  • Upper Preparatory ('Upper Prep', 8-9)


Elements Playroom (formerly Hodder Playroom along with Preparatory)
  • Lower Elements (9-10)
  • Upper Elements (10-11)


Figures Playroom
  • Figures (11-12)


Rudiments Playroom
  • Rudiments ('Ruds', 12-13)

Lines

In addition to the playrooms, there is also a system which cuts through the year groups: the "Lines", which are used mostly for sports and competitions. The Lines and colours are as follows:
  • Campion (Red) (after St Edmund Campion
    Edmund Campion
    Saint Edmund Campion, S.J. was an English Roman Catholic martyr and Jesuit priest. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Protestant England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason by a kangaroo court, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn...

    )
  • St Omers (Yellow, though some brown rugby shirts as yellow shows too much dirt) (after St Omer
    Saint-Omer
    Saint-Omer , a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais. The town is named after Saint Audomar, who brought Christianity to the area....

    , the town where the school was founded)
  • Shireburn (Green) (after the Shireburn family that built Stonyhurst)
  • Weld (Blue) (after the Weld family that donated Stonyhurst)


Pupils remain in the same Line throughout their time at the school, and if their parents or older siblings were also pupils, automatically enter the same Line.

Prefects

St Mary's Hall has a head boy and head girl. Duties rotate between members of Rudiments Playroom according to the "Line period", when tasks are allotted to members of a particular Line.

Discipline

At St Mary's Hall, behaviour is typically rewarded or punished through the use of "Line Cards". Each pupil carries their card at all times. It is signed on the left-hand side with a brief explanation by the teacher as a punishment, or "debit". It is signed on the right-hand side with an explanation as a reward or "credit". The cards are coloured according to Line membership. The total number of credits and debits, in part, determines which line is awarded a special Line Supper.

Line points are allotted for academic work and also contribute to the Line Supper allocation.

As at the college, the most severe punishment is permanent expulsion, and below that, temporary suspension.

Uniform

  • Boys wear grey shorts and grey knee-length socks (except Rudiments and Figures who wear trousers), white shirt, green tie, green jumper, and green blazers.
  • Girls wear white blouses, green ties, green jumpers, green blazers and skirts in the College tartan, known as Lady Borrowdale's gift and based on a fragment of tartan worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie on his flight from Culloden across to Skye. This was also worn on the Queen’s visit to the College in 1990.


Special ties are awarded for excellence in sport or for other achievements. Rudiments wear special ties with the school emblem repeated. Furthermore the committee wear similar ties with red sections.

Academic

Academic standards are high, owing in part to small classes, of usually no more than fifteen.

In Rudiments, pupils sit the Common Entrance or Scholarship examinations in preparation for entry to the College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

.

Extra Curricular

As at the College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

, St Mary's Hall follows a broad-based curriculum, encouraging participation in in a range of activities including sport, music, drama, and art.

Drama

Drama classes are compulsory at St Mary's Hall, where additional classes may be taken in preparation for LAMDA
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art is a leading British drama school in west London. LAMDA's president is Timothy West and its new principal is Joanna Read, who recently succeeded Peter James...

 examinations and entry into the Blackburn Festival. Plays are a regular fixture on the calendar, as are dramatic performances by pupils at the 'Friday Presentations', when the school gathers on a Friday evening to be entertained by a talk or production in the Centenaries Theatre. Each year, the staff also stage the school pantomime; pupils are asked to gather in the theatre under the guise of a "staff announcement".

The Ark

SMH had, until recently, a small rare breeds farm with pigs, hens, rabbits, sheep, fish and birds. Known as "The Ark", it was looked after by the children, under the supervision of staff. The Ark was closed due to animal welfare concerns.

Alumni/ae

Notable Alumni/ae:
  • George Archer-Shee
    George Archer-Shee
    George Archer-Shee became a British cause célèbre in 1910 when the issue of whether he stole a five shilling postal order ended up being decided in the High Court....

    , (Hodder Place alumnus), cause célèbre, his case was the inspiration for the play The Winslow Boy
    The Winslow Boy
    thumb|1st edition cover The Winslow Boy is an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne.-Performance History:...

     by Terence Rattigan
    Terence Rattigan
    Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...

    .
  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Hodder Place alumnus), author of Sherlock Holmes.
  • Will Greenwood
    Will Greenwood
    William John Heaton "Will" Greenwood, MBE is an English former rugby union footballer of the 1990s and 2000s.-Career:...

    , rugby player (whose mother taught mathematics at SMH until 2007).
  • Vyvyan Holland
    Vyvyan Holland
    Vyvyan Holland, OBE , born Vyvyan Oscar Beresford Wilde in London, was a British author and translator. He was the second son of Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd, after his brother Cyril.-Biography:...

     (Hodder Place alumnus), younger son of Oscar Wilde
    Oscar Wilde
    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

    .
  • Patrick Baladi
    Patrick Baladi
    Patrick Baladi was born on 25 December 1971 and is an English actor.Baladi was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England. His father is a gynaecologist from Libya, and his mother was a midwife...

    , Actor.

Hodder Place

style="font-size:100%;"

Superiors
  • 1856 George Lambert SJ
  • 1857 George Tickell SJ
  • 1858 John Laurenson
  • 1865 Francis Brownbill SJ
  • 1869 Matthew Newsham SJ
  • 1875 Walter Bridge SJ
  • 1876 Francis Cassidy SJ
  • 1878 William Kerr SJ
  • 1880 Francis Scholes SJ
  • 1882 William Burns SJ
  • 1884 Charles Clarke SJ
  • 1885 Francis Cassidy SJ

  • 1916 Edward King SJ
  • 1916 Walter Weld SJ
  • 1925 Aloysius Parkinson SJ
  • 1927 Leo Belton SJ
  • 1939 Hubert McEvoy SJ
  • 1942-9 Walter Weld SJ


Ministers
  • 1949 Oswald Fishwick SJ
  • 1959 John Firth SJ


Headmasters
  • 1965 Denis Unsworth
  • 1968 Mr. Earle
  • 1970 Rob. Sinclair
  • 1971 John Mallinson

St Mary's Hall

style="font-size:100%;"
Ministers
  • 1946 Dermot Whyte SJ
  • 1948 Philip Prime SJ
  • 1954 William Maher SJ
  • 1959 Anthony Powell SJ


Headmasters
  • 1965 R Vaughan Rigby OS

  • 1968 Rae Carter
  • 1978 Peter Anwyl
  • 1990 Rory O'Brien
  • 1999 Michael Higgins
  • 2004 Laurence Crouch


See also

  • Stonyhurst Estate
    Stonyhurst
    Stonyhurst is the name of a rural estate owned by the Society of Jesus near Clitheroe in Lancashire, England. It is dominated by Stonyhurst College, its preparatory school Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall and the parish Church of St Peter's.-The Estate:...

  • College of St. Omer
  • Stonyhurst College
    Stonyhurst College
    Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...

  • List of Stonyhurst Alumni/ae
  • Charities of Stonyhurst College
    Charities of Stonyhurst College
    Stonyhurst College and Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall are both Catholic boarding schools in the Jesuit tradition, which aim at the creation of Men and Women for Others. Under this principle, a number of charities operate within the two schools...

  • Society of Jesus
    Society of Jesus
    The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

  • St Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits
  • Blessed Virgin Mary, patron saint of SMH
    Mary (mother of Jesus)
    Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...


External links

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