| Description | This collection contains records relating to Beaumont College, from its entire time operating between 1861-1967, as well as items both pre-dating and succeeding its existence as a school. This includes a large quantity of correspondence on all aspects of school life, alongside other papers concerning its finances, the property and grounds, staff, students, parents, sport and recreation, and the school's closure. |
| Admin_History | Beaumont College was founded in October 1861 at Old Windsor, Berkshire. The core building, Beaumont Lodge, was a country house built near the Thames in 1705, named for Edward Bowman, a gentleman Usher to Charles I and II. The Jesuits chose it as the site for a noviceship near London and bought it from the executors of Lord Ashbrooke in 1854. It operated as such for 7 years, when it became a boarding school with the name St Stanislaus College, Beaumont. The first Beaumont schoolmasters came directly from Stonyhurst College, and the two schools influenced each other significantly. Father Eccles was the school’s first rector. It was a small school, never having much more than 200 pupils at once. Queen Victoria visited on 10 March 1882, providing the first personal recognition of a Catholic school by a sovereign since Henry VIII and Eton. She would visit three times in total. Fr Joseph Bampton SJ was rector 1901-1908, and brought significant reforms to the school. He replaced the traditional Jesuit model of close adult supervision with the captain system in which boys governed other boys.
Sport was significant at Beaumont, being the only public school besides Eton to send their First Eleven to play cricket at Lord’s and their First Eight to row at Henley. During the Second World War, they offered hospitality to Cardinal Vaughan School, which evacuated out of London. This was of course very difficult and crowded, but they made it work. The school was also camouflaged and had patrols at night looking for parachutists, after it was bombed. In 1951, Captain R.H. Peters gifted Ouseley Lodge to the school, a Victorian house on the grounds of Beaumont excluded from the original purchase. In the early 1950s, the Jesuit prefect system was abolished by the Rector Fr Coventry. The school magazine Vril began publication in 1956. By the 1960s, the English Province of the Jesuits was struggling with a growing shortage of priests, and the financial viability of such a small school was becoming increasingly impossible. The Second Vatican Council also began to feel that Jesuit resources should not be so focused on educating wealthy, first-world students. Therefore, in 1965 it was decided that the school would close, and it did in 1967. Most pupils transferred to Stonyhurst. This caused a lot of outrage and protest from parents and old boys, many of whom had been contributing to a fund to extend the laboratories. After its closure, the property has since been used as a training centre, conference centre, and is now a hotel.
For a full history of Beaumont up to 1961, see 'Beaumont' by Peter Levi, 1961. |
| Related Material | Archive:
For newspaper clippings about Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee including her visit to Beaumont, see G2/1.
For the notes and correspondence of Henry Campbell (donor of the Campbell Library), see PF/1 and PF/3.
For correspondence regarding a dispute over the cost of medical treatment for a Beaumont staff member, see PF/6.
For a flyer for a Catholic Dogma course held at Beaumont College, see PQ/4.
For the burial rights of Heathcote, a Beaumont alumnus, see TS/1.
For a publication by Christopher Cobb "Como Ser Gentlemen" about Anglo-Spanish relations and Jesuits, see TS/13.
For correspondence concerning Beaumont within Blackett Letter Books, see 10/4: Vol. 5/ 173; Vol. 6/ 46, 348; Vol. 7/ 339-343; Vol. 9/ 56, 91; Vol. 12/ 15-16. 173, 199, 341; Vol. 14/ 255; Vol. 17/ 58, 67-68, 75-76, 295, 219, 236, 242, 249, 251, 258-259, 335, 355, 363, 375-376, 395, 466.
For information regarding the establishment of the Novitiate at Beaumont in 1854, see 14/2/16, folio 21.
For a photo album containing photographs from a number of Jesuit colleges including Beaumont, see 31/3/2.
For a DVD recording of Beaumont Choral Reunion – St. John’s choir and Beaumont Union sing hymns of their youth, see 100/966/28.
For papers relating to Martyr portraits at Beaumont and other institutions, see Martyrs Cause box 100 (MC Box100).
For a photograph shooting a scene at Beaumont for ‘Bees in Paradise’ 1943, see ABSI/SJ/55/13.
For sketches of Beaumont and St John’s Beaumont by Fr Peter Knott SJ, see ABSI/SJ/56/5/16.
For the personal papers of Fr John Costigan SJ, Rector of Beaumont 1958-1964, see ABSI/SJ/76.
For the personal papers of Fr Aston Chichester SJ, rector of Beaumont 1921-1929, see ABSI/SJ/86.
For notes by Fr Joseph Keating SJ on his annual retreats at Beaumont, see ABSI/SJ/88/3/4.
For the personal papers of Fr John Lynch SJ, instrumental in the early years of Beaumont College, see ABSI/SJ/130.
For a photograph of the Beaumont College Cricket XI of 1883, ABSI/SJ/142/8.
For Fr John Desmond Boyle SJ’s correspondence concerning Beaumont College, see ABSI/SJ/161/1/1. For his diaries and logbooks from his time as Prefect of Studies at Beaumont 1931-1944, see ABSI/SJ/161/7. For his documents pertaining to Old Boys of Beaumont, see ABSI/SJ/161/10.
For the personal papers of Peter Levi, see ABSI/SJ/X/12.
Library:
For the school magazine Beaumont Review Vols. 1-27 1894-1967, see the library collection.
For an article “Taking off the wraps” about the closure of Beaumont, by the headmaster at the time Thomas Dunphy SJ, see Letters & Notices Vol. 89 no. 394, pp.43-47.
For 'Beaumont' by Peter Levi, see BY 41 B4.
For 'Beaumont College 1861-1911' by Fr Cuthbert Charles Lattey SJ and Fr Francis Chales Devas SJ, see FBY 41 B4. |