Our history
Beginnings
In 1923, the first Wimbledon College pilgrimage of fourteen members and their chaplain, Fr John Manning SJ, went to Lourdes as part of the Catholic Association pilgrimage, an umbrella organisation that brought together a number of English dioceses. The group spent the 30-hour train journey to Lourdes looking after the baggage and equipment of the sick and disabled (and sleeping on it too, in the baggage compartment). While in Lourdes, they worked as pilgrimage brancardiers (stretcherbearers) — wheeling the sick to and from the hospitals, baths, and afternoon processions, and, no doubt as nowadays, to bars and cafés as well. In the evening, they went to the bars by themselves, Le Terrace being their favourite venue, and afterwards, to the Grotto to pray before bedtime.
There was a pilgrimage from the College every year until 1939, and they began to include old boys as well as current members of the College. A favourite quotation from those years is: ‘A College boy’s education is not complete if he has not been to Lourdes.’
After the Second World War, a few old boys went independently to Lourdes, among them George Hills, serving not with the pilgrimage but with the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes (HDNL). HNDL was a predominantly French, but nowadays international, organisation that welcomes all pilgrims to Lourdes, particularly the sick and disabled, providing the central services that all pilgrimages and pilgrims depend on when they are in Lourdes.
Post-war history
In 1953, Fr Ignatius St Lawrence SJ restarted the Wimbledon College working party. Initially, the group worked as brancardiers again with the Catholic Association pilgrimage, until Hills introduced the working party to the HNDL. Every year since then, rather than being attached to a single pilgrimage, the College working parties have served with the HNDL.
In 1977, the working party’s links with the HNDL were strengthened when we became a formally constituted hospitalité affiliated to the HNDL. Hills became the first president of the newly-formed Wimbledon College Lourdes Hospitalité.
Throughout all these years, the Wimbledon College Lourdes Hospitalité has maintained the tradition of sending at least one working party to Lourdes each year, composed formerly of sixth formers, nowadays recent College leavers and old boys, as well as other men and women associated with our group. Sadly, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to run our usual working parties to Lourdes in 2020 and 2021, although in both years, a few members still went to serve in Lourdes.