St. Edmund's College

St Edmund's College is a coeducational private day and boarding school set in 440 acres in Ware, Hertfordshire, following the British public school tradition. It began in 1568 as the English College, a seminary founded by William Cardinal Allen at Douai in Flanders to train priests for England and to educate Catholic boys barred from schooling in England. Many alumni, including 20 canonised and 138 beatified martyrs, returned to England and were executed under anti-Catholic laws. A related preparatory school existed in England from the 17th century, moving through Silkstead, Twyford, Standon Lordship, and finally to Old Hall Green in 1769. When the French Revolution ended the Douai college in 1793, its staff and students relocated to Old Hall Green, forming the new St Edmund's College on 16 November 1793. Over the following centuries it served as a seminary for the London district, underwent building expansions including a Pugin-designed chapel, and experienced periods of financial difficulty. It ceased to be a theological college in 1869 and later separated its junior school as St Hugh's, later renamed St Edmund's Preparatory School. The college became fully coeducational by 1986 and added an infants' department in 1996, now educating pupils aged 3 to 18. It celebrated its 450th anniversary in 2018.