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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonyhurst_College]
Stonyhurst College is a coeducational 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. The school has been fully co-educational since 1999.
The college was founded in 1593by Father Robert Persons SJ at St Omer,[6] 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 England and located at Stonyhurst Hall in 1794. Today 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.
Under the motto Quant Je Puis, "All that I can", the school combines an academic curriculum with extra-curricular pursuits. Roman Catholicism plays a central rôle in college life, with emphasis on both prayer and service, according to the Jesuit philosophy of creating "Men and Women for Others".
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.
The earliest deed concerning the "Stanihurst" is held in the college's Arundell Library; it dates from approximately 1200. In 1372, a licence was granted to John de Bayley for an oratory on the site. His descendants, the Shireburn family, completed the oldest portion of the extant buildings. Richard Shireburn began building the hall, which was enlarged by his grandson Nicholas who also constructed the ponds, avenue and gardens. Following his death, the estate passed to his wife and then to their sole heir, Mary, the Duchess of Norfolk. In 1754, it was inherited by her cousin Thomas Weld of Lulworth. A former pupil of the school from its years in Liège, he donated the buildings, with 30 acres (120,000 m2) of land, in 1794 to the Society of Jesus.
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.