Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall

Infobox School2
name = Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall
latin_name =" Aula Sanctae Mariae"


motto = "Quant Je Puis" (French: "As much as I can")
established = 1807 (as Hodder Place); 1946 (as Saint Mary's Hall)
type = Independent, Catholic (Jesuit), Preparatory
head_name = Headmaster
head = Mr Laurence Crouch BA MA PGCE
city = Clitheroe
state = Lancashire
country = England
free_label = Preparatory School to
free = Stonyhurst College
website = [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/index.shtml/ www.saintmaryshall.com]

Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall (commonly known as S.M.H.) is the preparatory school to Stonyhurst College. It is an independent, Roman Catholic school in the Jesuit tradition, offering boarding and day education to boys and girls aged three to thirteen, and is the successor to the original preparatory school, Hodder Place. [ [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/index.shtml Welcome ] ]

It is situated on an adjacent site to Stonyhurst College, on the edge of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, outside the small village of Hurst Green near Clitheroe in Lancashire, close to the River Hodder and River Ribble.

History

Jesuit College

Stonyhurst College was founded in 1593 as the English Jesuit College at St Omers in present-day France at a time when Catholic education was prohibited by law in England. Having moved to Bruges in 1762 and then Liege in 1773, due to the persecution of the Jesuit order which ran the school, it finally settled at Stonyhurst 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 but this was abandoned and ultimately thwarted by the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in 1762. [ [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-2265.1963.tb00316.x?cookieSet=1 Blackwell Synergy - Cookie Absent ] ] 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. [TE Muir, "Stonyhurst" second edition 2006, p.195] Thirteen years after the settlement in England the preparatory school was finally established in 1807. [A Stonyhurst Handbook for Visitors and Others, third edition 1963]

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, Hodder Place. The latter opened as a Jesuit novitiate 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. [A Stonyhurst Handbook for Visitors and Others, third edition 1963, p.37]

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 Saint Mary's Hall both for sports and, during the summer, as a campsite.

aint Mary's Hall

Between 1828 and 1830, a new building in Georgian style, was constructed closer to the college and opened as the new novitiate, Saint Mary's Hall. In the nineteenth century, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins 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.

Saint 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 Saint 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 Saint 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. [ [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/article_169.shtml Bicentenary Celebrations begin with Mass at the River Hodder ] ] [ [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/article_135.shtml Friday Presentations ] ]

Since the addition of wings and the chapel extension in the nineteenth century, the buildings of Saint 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 "Saint 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 Saint Mary's Hall".

Religious Life

Saint 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 lunches, where money saved from simplifying the menu is given to charity, and through the school's own charity "Children for Children". Each year Saint 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.

Saint Mary's Hall has its own chapel, where mass is said, as well as the Stations of the Cross during Lent and 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, restored by the College stonemason in 2008, stands atop the entrance to the old Jesuit escape tunnel in the garden; [ [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/article_361.shtml General News ] ] 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. 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 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.

chool Organisation

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
* Preparatory ('Prep', 7-8)

Elements Playroom (formerly Hodder Playroom along with Preparatory)
* Lower Elements (8-9)
* Upper Elements (9-10)

Figures Playroom
* Lower Figures (10-11)
* Upper 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)
* St Omers (Yellow, though Brown for sporting attire) (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)

Pupils remain in the same line throughout their time at the school, and if their parents 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 dinner.

Line points are allotted or deducted for academic work and also contribute to the line dinner 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 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. [ [http://www.stonyhurst.ac.uk/article_666.shtml General News ] ]

Special ties are awarded for excellence in sport or for other achievements.

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.

Extra Curricular

As at the College, Saint 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 Saint Mary's Hall, where additional classes may be taken in preparation for LAMDA 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". [ [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/article_324.shtml General News ] ]

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:

*Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Hodder Place alumnus) [http://archive.thisislancashire.co.uk/2004/10/12/464406.html]
*Will Greenwood whose mother taught mathematics at SMH until 2007. [ [http://www.stonyhurst.ac.uk/article_947.shtml General News ] ]

Headmasters

Hodder Place

col-begin 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
*1969 Rob. Sinclair
*1970 John Mallinson

t Mary's Hall

col-begin 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

ee also

*Stonyhurst Estate
*College of St. Omer
*Stonyhurst College
*List of Stonyhurst Alumni/ae
*Charities of Stonyhurst College
*Society of Jesus
*St Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits
*Blessed Virgin Mary, patron saint of SMH

External links

* [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/index.shtml/ SMH]
* [http://www.saintmaryshall.com/vtour/article_64.shtml/ Virtual tour of SMH]
* [http://www.stonyhurst.ac.uk/welcome.shtml/ Stonyhurst]
* [http://www.iaps.org.uk/ Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools]
* [http://www.isc.co.uk/index.php/377 Independent Schools Council]

References