Our History

History of St Vincent Sixth Form College

The first St Vincent

The college’s namesake was a fireship – a naval vessel designed specifically to be set on fire and intentionally rammed into enemy ships. It was captured from the French by the Royal Navy in 1692 and sold on in 1698. The St Vincent name passed on to a captured Spanish sloop, the San Vicente, in 1780, which was sold on three years later.

Training legacy begins

The third incarnation, a 120-gun ‘Nelson Class’ ship of the line, was launched at Devonport in 1815 and commissioned in 1829. The fourth HMS St Vincent was a Dreadnought battleship built in Portsmouth dockyard and completed in May 1909. She which saw some action in the First World War, damaging a German cruiser during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Both ships ended their days as training vessels, the third at Haslar, close to where the Gosport Marina lightship Mary Mouse 2 is berthed, until 1905. The final floating version was a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth until June 1919.

 

Ship to shore

Forton barracks had been in various guises until 1923. After extensive repairs it was renamed HMS Vincent and opened in 1927 as a training school for boy seamen. At the outbreak of the Second World War the boys were evacuated to HMS George on the Isle of Man and the college became first a training centre for officers of the Fleet Air Arm and, in July 1940, a torpedo training section. At the end of the war the boys returned and it continued to shape the lives of young sailors until it closed on December 8, 1969. However the white ensign was not finally lowered until April 2, 1969, the days before the site was sold to developers.

Back to school

With many of the historic buildings demolished (but not the iconic clocktower) St Vincent Secondary School opened on the site in 1975. Gosport Sixth Form College opened on the site in 1987 under a re-organisation of secondary education in the area. The two establishments ran side by side until 1990 when the school’s final Year 11 departed. The college then took on the name we know today, St Vincent. The college became part of the Lighthouse Learning Trust in 2017.

 

 

St Vincent 1815: The second ship to be named St Vincent, painted in Portsmouth Harbour in 1815
by Charles Edward Dixon

St Vincent 1911: The fourth and final floating HMS St Vincent in 1911

St Vincent Fleet Air Arm: The Fleet Air Arm parading at Forton Barracks in 1943