1st October 1917

De La Salle College opens

The Roman Catholic De La Salle College opened its doors to its first pupils at the start of autumn term, 1917, with an initial intake of just twelve.

The college is named for Saint John de la Salle, who trained as a priest before going on to set up free schools in France in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His influence was long-lasting. In the mid-1800s, by which time he’d been dead for more than a century, the institute that he founded – the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, sometimes known as the De La Salle Brothers – opened its first school in mainland Britain.

John de la Salle is now the patron saint of teachers.