Heythrop College
HEYTHROP COLLEGE
Heythrop College originated in the Jesuit scholasticates in penal times at Louvain (1614–24) and Liège
(1624–1794). In the wake of the French Revolution, the faculties moved to England; eventually the philosophy faculty (St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst) and the theology faculty (St. Beuno's, North Wales) were united in 1926 at Heythrop, Oxfordshire, eventually becoming a Pontifical Atheneum (1965–69). This status changed when, by Royal Charter, it became a college of the University of London in 1970, with F. C. Copleston, SJ, as its first principal. It has retained its Jesuit and Catholic identity, with strong ecumenical and interfaith dimensions, within the federal University of London, awarding degrees of the university. Its library, one of the finest in Britain and the property of the British Jesuit province, contains 300,000 volumes; professors number about 35 and students 530. Publications include the Heythrop Journal, Heythrop Studies in Contemporary Philosophy, Religion and Theology, Bellarmine Series and Commentary, and Heythrop Monographs.
Bibliography: f. courtney, "English Jesuit Colleges in the Low Countries 1593–1794," Heythrop Journal 4 (1963) 254–263.
[j. mcdade]