William F. Gannon

William F. Gannon (March 31, 1859 – October 30, 1916) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who was the president of Boston College from 1903 to 1907. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1876 and studied at Woodstock College. He then taught at Jesuit schools, including the College of the Holy Cross, Saint Peter's College, Fordham University, and Georgetown University, before becoming president of Boston College. After his presidency, he engaged in pastoral work in New York City and Philadelphia.

Early life Gannon was born on March 31, 1859, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He studied at Boston College High School and entered the Society of Jesus on August 5, 1876, proceeding to the Jesuit novitiate in Frederick, Maryland.

In 1892, Gannon returned to the College of the Holy Cross as the prefect of discipline. The following year, he went to Maison St-Joseph, the Jesuit novitiate in Sault-au-Récollet (now a neighborhood of Montreal, Canada), where he completed his tertianship. For one year, in 1894, Gannon was the prefect of discipline at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Diplomas were awarded to the graduates of Boston College High School for the first time in 1904. Gannon sought to expand the college's sports programs, and its intramural baseball team was re-established, but the lack of a gymnasium and a suitable athletic field hindered expansion.

Boston College was the largest Jesuit college and high school in the United States in 1900, but enrollment began to decline around this time, reaching a low of 335 combined students in 1904. Several students from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, transferred to Boston College when that school closed in 1905. Gannon was succeeded as president of Boston College by Thomas I. Gasson on January 6, 1907.

Later years From 1907 to 1908, Gannon engaged in pastoral work at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan, New York City. He then went to St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. and returned to St. Ignatius Loyola Church in 1913. In the summer of 1914, Gannon took up work at the Church of the Gesú in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a confessor and the director of the married men's sodality. In August 1916, he became the director of the church's Senior Holy Name Society. Sixth months after his death, the consultors of the married men's sodality completed a list of members, numbering 222, and reconsecrated those members.