The Association was formed in 1879 but there are reports of its existence even 60 years before that. The list of Presidents is however complete from 1879.
Current President 2024 – 2026, Harry Dickinson (OS 1994)
I am writing these words sitting in the house in Hayama, Japan where my mother and five of her siblings were born. It is just after 6am, already 30°C outside where the cicadas have just started the raucous chorus that they will maintain all day. And as I write I reflect that this country could not be more different than the green and damp rural beauty of the Lancashire countryside; second, and perhaps irrelevantly, that I am almost certainly the first President of the Stonyhurst Association that is half-Japanese (perhaps the first with east Asian blood?) and, finally, that I am truly honoured to be assuming this mantle while I have a son at the College and with an exciting programme of upcoming events that will further bind the Stonyhurst family together.
Family is important to all of us. For me, first there is my immediate family – my German wife, Claudia, and children, Clara (at Exeter Uni), George (going into Rhetoric in September) and Isabel (we hope, off to the College in 2026). Then my six siblings, four of them OS. My Japanese mother, Tomoko – mother of five OS – and grandmother of fifteen (only one at Stonyhurst so far, but more to follow surely!). My English trilby-hatted father looks down from above with an ethereal glass of whisky in one hand, a fag in the other. Binding my family and the wider Stonyhurst family together is one of my aims during my tenure as president and this is one of the aims of the Richmond Thirst Friday on 6th September at Richmond Rugby Club which has become a wonderful opportunity for OS, current Stonyhurst families and friends to gather and to have some late summer fun!
Having fun will be a key motivator in the events that the Association will host in the coming two years of my tenure. In order to reap the benefits that a community like Stonyhurst can bring we need to connect to people, especially our younger members. I was delighted to be contacted recently by Leo Higham OS 19 who wants to revive Stonyhurst Wanderers rugby which had fallen into abeyance. Leo had already organised an OS team to play the Mount in July. Such initiatives will have my full backing because they create communities that support each other in good times and bad, create great networking opportunities and remind us why we become friends in the first place – sharing interests and having fun!
In my life so far, the idea of service has found its expression at Stonyhurst and in the Army. I spent a roughly equivalent amount of time at each institution, yet despite that brevity their impact was profound. First, most of my strongest friendships were forged in one or the other (or both!). There is much in common to both – for example, “Men and Women for Others” at Stonyhurst, and the Sandhurst motto “Serve to Lead” are variations on the same theme; and “Quant Je Puis” could be a mantra for military service (although sadistic PTIs may have paraphrased it with: “Pain is weakness leaving the body”!).
Of course, Stonyhurst’s contribution to the Armed Forces has been extraordinary and Association members will be fully aware of our history. They may be less familiar with the fact that in Major John Cobb’s time alone as Commanding Officer of the Stonyhurst College Cadet Corps, one hundred and twenty-six former OS cadets received the Queen’s Commission in one or other branch of the Armed Forces. I therefore felt strongly that during my tenure we should celebrate that very fine marriage of Stonyhurst and the military with a dinner which will be held in London on 29 November this year. All serving and retired UK and overseas military are warmly invited to join us and reunite with old schoolfriends and comrades and forge new friendships.
Finally, back to Japan. Catholicism was brought here by St Francis Xavier SJ in the 1540s, 50 years before Stonyhurst’s founding in 1593. For generations, the pull of a Jesuit education has drawn young men and women from the ends of the world to Lancashire, to brave near constant rain and dodgy food, and then send them back out again to make some positive impact. My kids are half German, quarter Japanese and a quarter English.
At Stonyhurst it amazes me to reflect on the nationalities of George’s non-British friends – Germans, Italians, French, Mexicans, Spanish to name a few; but it was ever thus. And this is one of the true values of a Stonyhurst education – an ability to get on with people from all over the world and to see what we have in common rather than what sets us apart. Such vital skills in today’s troubled world.
So, it is also my intention to lead a charge of Stonyhurst men and women reaching out to OS, young and old all over the world, to celebrate the amazing and diverse network that is the Stonyhurst Association; we will do this by gathering and having fun – QJP and AMDG.
