St Edmund's College

St Edmund's College was originally founded in Douai, in 1568, by Cardinal William Allen. Originally intended as a seminary to prepare priests to work in England, it soon also became a boys' school for Catholics, debarred from having such institutions in their own country. During the French Revolution, the College transferred to England to the 'Old Hall Academy' in Hertfordshire, 1793. The Academy was then renamed St Edmund's College. The era of Vicars Apostolic ended in 1850 with the restoration of the Hierarchy. In 1869 the Archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward Manning, set up a seminary in
Hammersmith, and so for the first time St Edmund's ceased to be a theological
college. In 1874, during the Presidency of Monsignor James Patterson, the junior boys were separated from the rest of the College into Saint Hugh's Preparatory School, in a house originally built by Pugin for the Oxford convert WG Ward. In 1893, his son, Bernard Ward, was appointed President of the College and he started a scheme of rebuilding and improvements.

The College continued as a boys' school and seminary until 1975, around the same time as girls from the adjacent Poles Convent were first admitted into the Sixth Form. The College became fully co-educational in 1986.