Jesuit Institutions
On this page are images of the most commonly occurring ownership marks in our collection which relate to Jesuit Institutions. The first section covers the successive institutions in and around Berkeley Square in Mayfair, the second section covers the library of the Jesuit Novitiate, which moved as the Novitiate did to at least eight different locations in England and Scotland. The third section covers the Jesuit administrative districts into which England and Wales were divided. This section contains a list of the districts. The final section covers Jesuit institutions in other Provinces which have owned books now in our collection.
Jesuit institutions in Mayfair
There have been successive Jesuit institutions in and around Berkeley Square since the 1840s. The sequence of residences and other institutions is convoluted. The Jesuit Provincial and Curia were based in 9 Hill Street in the 1840s, but moved gradually to Farm Street/Mount Street from 1850 through to the 1880s. Some of the buildings can be accessed from more than one street - for example 31 Farm Street and 114 Mount Street were linked, so institutions within these buildings may have been known by either or both names, changing over time. To confuse matters further, Mount Street has been renumbered on at least one occasion, so different building numbers do not always denote different buildings. What is now 114 Mount Street was previously 111 Mount Street, and this change of number can occasionally be seen in the books.
For more information about these institutions, click on the images below.
The Jesuit Novitiate
The Jesuit Novitiate was where Jesuits traditionally spent the first two years after joining the Society. After the establishment of the English Province in 1623, a Novitiate was set up in London at Clerkenwell. This was raided in 1628, and no more Novices were trained in England or Wales until after the restitution of the Society in England in 1803, although the College of St Ignatius, centred on London, still claimed the title of Novitiate. Instead, all Jesuit training was based abroad. When the Novitiate was re-established, it was based at Hodder in Lancashire until the 1850s, moving to Beaumont in 1853 and to Roehampton in 1861. It remained at Manresa House, Roehampton until the 1950s, when it moved to Harlaxton Manor. The Novitiate was briefly back at Roehampton, then moved to Woodhall in Edinburgh. From 1970-1977 it was at Loyola Hall at Rainhill, then moved to Harbourne, Birmingham, where it remains to this day.
The Novitiate had a library, which moved location as the institution moved. In 2017 around 180 of the older volumes were moved from Harbourne to the Jesuit Archives. Many of these books have a stamp 'Novices Library S.J. English Province', and some have instead, or in addition, a stamp for one or more of the locations that the Novitiate has been based. More work is needed on these books, which will no doubt result in more provenance marks being discovered. These will be added here as we find them.
Please click on any of the images below to find out more.
Jesuit administrative districts
England became a Jesuit Province in 1623, and the Province was divided into administrative districts called Colleges and Residences, a system that endured until the nineteenth century. The terminology is confusing; colleges and residences were assemblies of people and indicated a geographical area rather than buildings. A College was ruled by a Rector and was more important and usually of greater extent than a Residence, which was smaller and ruled by a Superior who had less authority than a Rector of a College. Some of the districts are nebulous, and there was some overlapping of jurisdictions as well as change through time. Some Residences were promoted after a number of years to become Colleges, but many did not.
In the gallery below are images of some of the ownership marks which indicate a book belonged to one of these districts. Please click on any of the images to learn more.
At the end of this section is a list of all known Residences and Colleges in England and Wales
List of Jesuit administrative districts in England and Wales
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College of St Ignatius – London, Middlesex, Kent, Hertfordshire. It retained the title ‘Novitiate’ until 1773, although no novices were trained there after 1628.
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College of the Holy Apostles – Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. Its main bases were in Bury St Edmunds and Norwich.
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College of Blessed (Saint after 1726) Aloysius – Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Westmorland. Includes Stonyhurst.
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College of the Immaculate Conception – Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire
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Residence of St Aloysius – Oxfordshire in the 19th century*
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Residence of St Chad – Staffordshire after 1660. In 1671/2 it became a college
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College of St Francis Xavier – South Wales and Herefordshire
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Residence of St Winefride – North Wales, after 1666/7
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Residence of St John the Evangelist – Durham, Cumberland and Northumberland
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Residence of St Dominic – Lincolnshire, before 1676
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College of St Hugh – Lincolnshire, after 1676
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Residence of St Michael – Yorkshire, until 1849 when it became the College of St Michael
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Residence of St Mary – Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire
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Residence of St Thomas of Canterbury – Sussex, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset
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Residence of St George – Worcestershire and Warwickshire
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Residence of Blessed (Saint after 1701) Stanislaus – Devon and Cornwall
* The status of this residence is unclear
Jesuit institutions in other Provinces
A number of the books in our collection have provenance marks for Jesuit institutions across Europe. We suspect these books were consciously collected in the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, many being bought from booksellers in London or in Europe. We have not been able to identify all the institutions -- if you can help with these identifications, please use the contact form below.
Click on an image below to find out more.
