Stonyhurst College OTC brass shoulder titles, matching pair

A matching pair of Stonyhurst College Officers' Training Corps (OTC) brass shoulder titles, with the original backing plates.

Stonyhurst College

Stonyhurst is a Jesuit Catholic boarding school near Clitheroe in Lancashire. It is the direct descendant of the college Father Robert Persons founded at St Omer in 1592, and settled at Stonyhurst in 1794.

It educated a large share of England's Catholic families.

From Cadet Corps to OTC

Stonyhurst's Cadet Corps first paraded on 16 October 1900 in the Ambulacrum, overseen by the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment on War Office orders.

It then became part of the OTC under the Haldane reforms. The OTC trained young men so they could become officers in the Special Reserve and Territorial Force.

• Drill parades and field exercises
• Musketry and annual camp
• Tactics, map reading and military engineering

A strong contingent

The rector was one of a small number of headmasters the War Office allowed to nominate boys directly to Sandhurst. That privilege only went to schools whose OTC reached a set strength, and Stonyhurst had three full companies.

The first officer commanding was Pearse of the East Lancashire Regiment, later awarded the DSO (1917).

The Great War

The school's record in the Great War is notable. Today's cadet platoons are named after Old Stonyhursts who won the Victoria Cross.

The college's Shrine and Science Buildings were given by old boys and friends as a memorial to its men who served in the First World War.