St Joseph's College, Upholland is a Former Roman Catholic seminary, situated at Walthew Park, Upholland, Lancashire.
History
St Joseph's College was founded in 1880 by Bishop Bernard O'Reilly, Bishop of Liverpool, to be the Seminary serving the North West of England. The college was formally opened in 1883 and was situated in Walthew Park, Upholland, the geographic centre of the Diocese of Liverpool. The foundation stone of the building was laid in April 1880 and the College was finally opened in 1883.
The first Junior Seminary of the Diocese was founded at St Edward's College in 1842 as a Catholic 'classical and commercial school' under the direction of the secular clergy and was established in Domingo House, a mansion in Everton. Its President for the next forty years was to be Monsignor Provost John Henry Fisher. When the Junior Seminarians moved to St Joseph's the school was taken over by the Christian Brothers (who also ran St John Rigby College in nearby Orrell) and continues to this day and now serves as the Liverpool Cathedral Choir School. In recognition of the heritage owed to St Edward's College one of the two chapels at Upholland was consecrated as the St Edward the Confessor Chapel.
Along with Ushaw College, the other main seminary in the north of England, candidates for the priesthood studied and were ordained at the college. Up until the Second Vatican Council boys as young as 11 years of age entered the Junior Seminary before progressing to the senior Seminary at 18. In 1972 following the changes of Vatican 2 the two junior seminaries of St Joseph's and Ushaw merged at Upholland, and in 1975, with declining numbers of men, the Senior seminary moved to Ushaw. St Joseph's continued to offer boarding school education for boys considering a vocation until 1987.
Following the end of the seminary training and boarding education St Joseph's became home to the Northern Institute and was used as a retreat and conference centre for the Archdiocese under the leadership of Msgr John Devine.
The election of Archbishop Patrick Kelly saw the decision to close St Joseph's altogether. After the buidings were deconsecrated, the property was sold to Anglo International who instructed AEW Architects for the conversion of the Grade 2 listed RC Seminary to 92 apartments, with 220 new build enabling units.
Notable Alumni
- John Battle MP (Lab) (b. 1951), Labour MP for Leeds West
- Alexander Jones (d. 1970), considered one of the world's leading biblical scholars. He lectured extensively and authored innumerable articles and several books based on the Scriptures. Formerly a senior lecturer in divinity at Christ's College, Liverpool, he had followed his time at Upholland with studies at the Pontifical Gregorian in Rome and at the Biblical Institute, also in Rome, as well as L'Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem.
- Michael Kenna (b. 1953), Artist and photographer
- Paddy McAloon, singer with Prefab Sprout
- Tom O'Connor, TV personality, comedian
- Michael Joseph Pennington (b. 1971), AKA "Johnny Vegas", TV personality, actor, comedian
- Bishop John Rawsthorne (b. 1936), Bishop of Hallam
- George Carman Q.C. (1929-2001), distinguished defence counsel in many of the most celebrated criminal trials of the last quarter of the 20th century.
