STGC [1850 – 2012] Adapted by Robbie Vernon
St. George´s College was founded in 1850 by twenty-one Spanish Jesuits who had been exiled from New Granada (now Colombia), as part of a religious persecution. At their head was Fr. Emmanuel Gil, S.J., a distinguished scholar and former Court preacher to the King of Spain. It was amidst a storm of protest in the press against the Jesuits for proposing opening Jamaica’s first Catholic secondary institution for classical and scientific education, that St. George’s College actually opened its doors on September 2, 1850. This was in a rented house at 26 North Street on the southeast corner of North and Orange Streets.
The new College opened with thirty-eight day students and thirty boarders. The first subjects taught included Latin, Greek, French, English, Rhetoric, History, Mathematics, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Drawing and Calligraphy.
At that time 1850, Jamaica had a population of 400,000, described than as broken down into 305,000 Negroes, 80,000 mixed and 15,000 whites. The Catholic population was 5,000 and with a handful of priests. The Anglican Church was the predominant Christian presence with over 115 clergymen.
Almost simultaneous with the opening of its doors in 1850 was the outbreak of the dread Asiatic cholera. Kingston was hard hit with deaths of over 150 per day. Fr. Gill set aside five priests and two coadjutor brothers to care for the stricken and they made themselves available any hour of the day or night, and went from house to house, consoling the dying, hearing confessions, giving last rites. When the epidemic abated, Kingston counted 3,675 dead; one tenth of its population.
The heroic charity of the priests won over the hearts of the population and helped greatly to counteract the negative press that accompanied the school’s opening. At the end of the first academic year on August 14 1851, the entire student body marched into an auditorium filled with proud parents and distinguished guests. The occasion was a public examination in subjects studied during the year. One outstanding student Mario Valenzuela, who received a distinction in Ethics, returned to his native Columbia and left an indelible mark in the annals of the Society of Jesus in that country. Mario entered the Jesuits in 1858, traveled throughout Central America returning to Bogota, Columbia in 1883. He opened colleges in Pasto, Medellin and Bogota itself and due largely to his work; the Society of Jesus regained the government’s blessings and was able to work again freely in Columbia.
After only two years, the Spanish Jesuits, led by founder Father Gill, S.J., departed Jamaica to teach in Guatemala, turning St. George’s over to the English Jesuits. They left primarily because of the difficulties in language, with English being a second language to them. The school moved to 5 Upper King Street and changed its name to the Presbytery Secondary School. There it remained until January 1866, when, for unclear reasons, it was closed.
A few months later, thanks to Fr. James Jones, S.J., the school was reopened with twenty-five students and moved back to its original site at 26 North Street, again under the name of St. George’s College. Only three years later, succumbing to the opposition of the Jesuit Superior, the school was closed, a second time, at Christmas of 1871. On this occasion the strong petitions of ninety-two influential Kingstonians convinced the Jesuits to reopen St. George’s in March 1873, but on a smaller scale, with only two Jesuit teachers. The school prospered until September 1877, when it was closed a third time, but this closure, however, lasted only a few days. The return of Father James Jones, S.J., and the leadership of Fr. Thomas Porter, S.J., assured a continued life.
In 1894 the English Jesuits were requested by Rome to leave the Jamaica mission and take up their work with other English Jesuits in Africa. The Jamaica mission was then entrusted to the American province of Maryland- New York and on April 7, 1894, the first American Jesuits arrived: Fathers John J Collins, Patrick F.X. Mulry and Andrew Rapp. These priests were well versed in high school and university administration and took charge of the entire mission territory of Jamaica including St. George’s College.