Stonyhurst, a great Roman Catholic college in north-east Lancashire, 4 miles SW. of Clitheroe, traces its origin to the seminary at St Omer (q.v.) in France, which was founded in 1592 by Father Parsons (q.v.). The seminary ere long had 200 students, but after many vicissitudes was suppressed by the tyranny of the Bourbons in 1762. After a short sojourn at Bruges till 1772, and at Liège till 1794 (when the French revolutionary armies were closing round it), the eighteen Jesuit fathers were offered a resting-place at Stonyhurst by Mr Weld of Lulworth, an old alumnus, to whose family the old home of the Shireburnes had in 1754 passed by marriage. The fine house, begun about 1594, was beginning to fall into ruin, and even when restored provided but scant accommodation for the 200 students who soon flocked to it. Extensions were made in 1810-78, the chapel being built in 1835, and other additions have been lately completed. The numbers have gone on increasing with some fluctuations, and are now about 300. The teaching staff numbers over thirty masters; and there is a preparatory school at Hodder, a mile distant. The department for higher education prepares young men for the London University degree and competitive examinations, and puts them through a course of philosophy. In 1840 Stonyhurst was affiliated to the University of London, and it has a long list of successes in the various examinations, especially classics. Between 1840 and 1890 about 400 passed the matriculation examination, of whom ninety took honours. The B.A. degree was taken by 120, half of these securing places on the classical honours list, and ten took M.A. in classics and mathematics. The course is mainly classical, but mathematics receives a large share of attention; and French, science, and other branches are essential parts of the course. Games are much encouraged, and special forms of football and hand-ball seem to have been brought from St Omer.
The college eleven is well known. There is a covered playground, swimming bath, gymnasium, and workshop; and the debating club and college magazine are prosperous institutions. The library of some 40,000 volumes has many valuable MSS. and early printed books; and the college possesses a collection of pictures, a museum of antiquities, scientific collections, and fine specimens of embroidery and church-plate in the sacristy (many of these treasures having been preserved from St Omer days). The college observatory rose into note under Father Perry, F.R.S. Many of the institutions—the names of classes, exercises, holidays—date from the residence abroad.
See Hewitson, Stonyhurst College (Preston, 1870; 2d ed. 1878); Memorials of Stonyhurst College (1881); Rimmer, Stonyhurst Illustrated (1884); J. B. Halt, Stonyhurst Lists, 1794-1886 (1886); Shawcross, Stonyhurst (1894); Father Gerard, Stonyhurst College (4to, 1894); P. Fitzgerald, Stonyhurst Memories (1895).