Douai School
| Motto | Dominus mihi adjutor (Latin: "The Lord is my aid") |
|---|---|
| Established | 1615 (re-founded 1818 and 1903) |
| Closed | 1999 |
| Type | Independent |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Founder | St. Edmund's Monastery (Paris) |
| Location |
Upper Woolhampton Berkshire England |
| Gender | Boys |
| Ages | 13–18 |
| Houses | Faringdon ; Gifford ; Samson ; Walmesley |
| Colours | Blue and gold |
| Publication | Douai Magazine |
| Former pupils | Old Dowegians |
| Song | Ad multos annos |
| Website | Former Douai School |
Douai School was the public (independent) school that was run by the Douai Abbey Benedictine community at Woolhampton, England, until it closed in 1999.
The monastic community was founded in Paris in 1615 and moved to Douai after the French Revolution taking over the former buildings of the community of St Gregory. The monastery provided educational opportunities from the beginning, but had no formal school in its first decades of existence. A boarding school later emerged in a dependent priory at La Celle.
Following the move to Douai in 1818, and the refoundation of the community by Richard Marsh, a more recognisable school emerged and by 1823, there were 28 boys on the roll. Around that time, the fees for students were being advertised at £32 a year or £30 for church students. Links with the English dioceses were crucial to the school's survival. In the 1880s the Diocese of Birmingham was sending seven boys a year to the school. Rather than the vertical house system of English schools, Douai retained the horizontal divisions of 'Rhetoric', 'Poetry', 'Grammar' and 'Syntax' throughout the nineteenth century, and even for a time in its new home in England.
The modern school in Woolhampton, Berkshire was formed by the site's pre-existing St Mary's College merging with the school of the incoming Benedictine community that moved from Douai in June 1903 as a result of Waldeck-Rousseau's Law of Associations (1901). Former pupils lobbied the Irish Parliamentary Party to raise the matter of the expulsion in Parliament. However it was English Tory Catholics who espoused the cause: Lord Edmund Talbot in the House of Commons and 11th Baron Herries of Terregles in the House of Lords.
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