Partnership would mark new chapter in Catholic higher education

A PARTNERSHIP between St Mary’s University and Heythrop College would be the most significant development in Catholic higher education in the past 50 years, writes Christopher Lamb.

Jesuit-run Heythrop, one of the oldest university colleges in England, started life in 1614 at Louvain, in Belgium, and had a somewhat peripatetic existence before settling in London in 1970.

By contrast, St Mary’s, a former teacher training college founded in 1850 at the time of the restoration of the hierarchy in England and Wales, has been on its current site at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham since 1925.

Recently awarded full university status, St Mary’s has some 6,000 students and accounts show it is in a strong financial position and broadly debt- free. Earlier this year Francis Campbell, former British ambassador to the Holy See, was appointed as its vice chancellor.

For Heythrop, a partnership with St Mary’s would secure its future as the Jesuit college currently does not appear to be financially viable on its own. But it would bring a strong academic patrimony to any deal, employing as it does scholars such as professors John Cottingham and Keith Ward.

Heythrop also has an enormous library of some 230,000 books that dates back to its seventeenth-century foundation. It trains Jesuits from around the world and would offer the Jesuit ethos and educational tradition.

Dr Jonathan Gorsky, a Jewish member of staff, said its college life is marked by “quite exceptional civility”.

Heythrop is also situated on a prime central London site purchased by the Jesuits in 2009 for £40 million. Its principal, Fr Holman (pictured left), said that the institution was very keen to “retain its central London base”, which he said was important for teaching postgraduate students. It is not clear yet how much of the lucrative site will be retained but a sale of even part of it would be extremely lucrative.