Campion College (Kingston)

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On 5 January 1960, with one hundred and one first form students and a faculty of four Jesuit Fathers, the new school opened its doors and the first lessons were given that day in a pavilion and in classrooms borrowed from Campion Hall Preparatory School. The Jesuit faculty residence was the former residence of the Jesuit Superior of the Island, Campion House. Campion Hall had been founded in January 1940 when Rt. Reverend Thomas A. Emmet, S.J.,D.D., was Vicar Apostolic of Jamaica and V. Reverend Thomas J. Feeney, S.J. was Superior. It began on the premises of St. George's College but moved to Roslyn Hall at 115 Old Hope Road on 6 January 1942. To make room for the growing needs of Campion College, it graduated its last class in December of 1962, just as twenty-two years earlier it had taken in its first students to supply the needs of St. George's College. Campion House, the former Superior's residence at 105 Hope Road, was the property of Mr. Roy Lindo before it and the large adjoining field were sold to the Society of Jesus.

Ground was broken on 26 August 1960 for a 20,000 pound (British Currency) two-storey structure of eight classrooms with an accommodation for 240 pupils. It was designed by McMorris & Sibley, Architects, and erected by the firm of Ivan D. Arscott. It was formally blessed on Monday, 20 March 1961 by the Rt. Reverend John J. McEleny, S.J.,D.D., Bishop of Kingston, and was dedicated to the memory of Mr. Martin A. Waters of Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., whose bequest along with other benefactors made the erection possible.

In addition to Waters Hall and to the West of it, a second new building was erected. The 15,000 pound Science Block has laboratories and classrooms for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Its construction, supervised by Leonard I. Change, was finished in December 1963 and opened for use in January 1964. The formal dedication and opening took place on Monday 24, February 1964, when it was blessed by V. Rev. John V. O'Conner, S.J., New England Provincial of the Society of Jesus.

A few firsts: Sports Day, Thursday 17 March 1960; Elocution Contest, Thursday 17 November 1960; the first Home School Association Meeting at which the Constitutions were adopted and Dr. Herman Lyn, D.M.D., was elected as the first president, Wednesday 14 June 1961; Sea Scout Investiture, Saturday 4 November 1961; Prize Giving, Wednesday 21 February 1962; Acceptance of first Sodality Members, Saturday 2 February 1963; first dance in Sts. Peter and Paul Church Hall, Friday 19 June 1964.

The School is named after Blessed Edmund Campion, a brilliant and celebrated Oxford Scholar, priest, and Jesuit martyr. An intrepid defender of the spiritual authority of the Holy See, he died most gloriously on the gallows at Tyburn on 1 December 1581. His examination and torture were the cause of numerous conversions to the Catholic faith. After being cruelly racked, it was proposed to him to hold a disputation with some of the famous Protestant divines, being allowed only to answer the objections, and not attack his adversaries. Although in a dying state, he triumphed with such success that they hastened on his death.