St Bede's College, Manchester

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Location
St Bede's College

Nunquam Otio Torpebat (Latin: "He never passed his time in idleness")
Alexandra Park, Manchester, England
Information
Headmaster	John Byrne (retiring July 2008)
Deputy heads	Terence Barnes, Rosamund Meehan, Matthew Bartlett
Students	1000 (approx.)
Teaching staff	76
Type	Independent, Catholic, co-ed.
School Colour(s)	Blue and gold
Established	1875
Houses	St. Alban, St. Chad, St. Cuthbert, St. Wilfred
Homepage	St Bede's College

St Bede's College, Manchester is a Roman Catholic Independent Grammar School situated on Alexandra Road South in the area of Whalley Range.

The school was founded in 1875 by the then Bishop of Salford, Herbert Vaughan, and moved to its present site a few years later after the acquisition of the former Manchester Aquarium building.

The diocesan junior seminary, Salford Catholic Grammar School, merged with St Bede's in 1892. Since then over 500 priests have been educated at the school. Although few pupils now go on to enter the priesthood, the school retains an underlying Catholic ethos.

The school will gain a new headmaster in September 2008 in Michael Barber, formerly Deputy Head at Downside School, when John Byrne retires after nearly 25 years in the role.

The Vaughan building from Alexandra Road South.

1 History
2 English Martyrs
3 The School Today
4 Famous Old Bedians
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Details from four relief panels by Tinworth and Doulton near the main entrance, Vaughan building

Part of the main playground. In the backround is the Vaughan building, with the Beck building to the right.

The original school was located at 16, Devonshire Street, Grosvenor Square, off Oxford Road and was set up in 1875 by the then Bishop of Salford, Herbert Vaughan, later Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Originally, the school was conceived as a "commercial school" to prepare the sons of Manchester Catholics for a life in business.

This was the first school under the patronage of St Bede: possibly the name was chosen because the Cardinal’s brother, a Benedictine and the Archbishop of Sydney, was Dom Bede Vaughan. In August 1877, the Manchester Aquarium on Alexandra Road and the plot of land around it was purchased by the then Bishop Vaughan for College purposes. On 10th September 1877, St Bede’s College re-opened in the Manchester Aquarium with 45 pupils who were taught by 11 staff, 8 of them priests.

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, the Vaughan building was constructed (see pictures). The original plan was for a symmetrical building, with five-storey towers at each end. Only one half of this design was ever carried out, but the main ground floor corridor of the Vaughan building is an impressive centrepiece for the school all the same. An imposing entrance on Alexandra Road (decorated with ceramic mouldings by Tinworth^[1]) leads into a corridor adorned with mosaics and marble. The original aquarium building (now the school's Academic Hall) leads off the main corridor directly opposite the main entrance. Appropriately the decorative scheme includes plaster mouldings of fish and other marine animals.

In 1892, Salford Catholic Grammar School (the Diocesan Junior seminary) amalgamated with the College which duly became the place where over 500 priests, not to mention several bishops and archbishops, were educated.

The College Chapel was built in 1898 and the Henshaw Building, named after the fifth Bishop of Salford, was opened around 1932. The Beck Building, named after the seventh Bishop of Salford George Andrew Beck, was opened in 1958 while the Regis Building, built in the first decade of the twentieth Century as a retreat house for the Cenacle Convent, was bought by the College in 1970. It remained empty until 1984 when the Governors took the decision to make St Bede’s co-educational. Over the next three years, the Regis building was completely renovated and allowed the College roll to increase from 630 at the beginning of the 1980s to over 1000 today.

[edit] English Martyrs

From the time of the school's move to Alexandra Road, the College supported the nearby St Bede's Mission, and priests on the school's staff worked to provide for the spiritual needs of the Catholic population in Whalley Range. In 1893 the Bishop of Salford, John Bilsborrow, appointed Father James Rowan, a former teacher at the college, as priest in charge of the district. The new English Martyrs Parish Church was consecrated on the Feast of the English Martyrs, May 4th 1922.

[edit] The School Today

The school now admits children from families of whatever Christian denomination. It provides a wide range of subjects and pupils perform well at GCSE and A-level.^[2] Since September 2005 the school has adopted a two week timetabling system, with alternate weeks operating on schedules named after the school colours — that is, Blue Week is followed by Gold Week and so on.

Although St Bede's is a fee-paying independent school, until 1999 many pupils had their fees paid by the Trafford Local Education Authority. Despite lying outside Trafford the school provided education to families from the metropolitan borough as part of the grammar school system in operation there.^[3] This peculiarity resulted in the school having a wider social mix than many in the UK independent sector. The St Bede's College Educational Trust attempts to maintain this broad entry despite the end of this arrangement and the Assisted Places Scheme, by providing bursaries on a means-tested basis.

Several notable television series have been filmed in and around the school buildings. For example, the school featured in Granada Television's The Jewel in the Crown^[4] and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,^[5] My Wonderful Life and Clocking Off.

Former students of the school are known as Old Bedians, and the Old Bedians Association organises regular events including an annual dinner and golf tournament. Alumni of the school founded the Old Bedians Rugby Union Football Club [1] in Didsbury in 1954.