Dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of education in England from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
Background
After the
While the religious reasons mattered most, the geography of university education also was a factor. The plans for a
Tutors in the academies were initially drawn from
Funding
There were several sources of funding. Some of these funds gave their trustees the option of sending young men either to dissenting academies, or to universities abroad. An academy, to attract such students, had to offer a course of instruction approved of by the Board for its purposes. Funding might be central or local, and there could be doctrinal as well as practical reasons why a given academy was sent students with financial support.[citation needed]
The Common Fund Board, founded in 1689, gave scholarships to
The Independent or Congregational Fund Board was established in 1695 to assist poor ministers, and to give young men who had already received a classical education, the theological and other training preparatory to the Christian ministry.[6]
An early sign of the division between Presbyterians and Independents was the fate of the Rathmell Academy after the death of Frankland in 1698: it migrated to Manchester under John Chorlton,[7] while another academy under Timothy Jollie, an Independent, operated at Attercliffe (one of the locations of Frankland's migratory academy) from the 1690s onwards.[8]
In 1730, the King's Head Society was founded by laymen in London who were dissatisfied with the management of the Congregational Fund Board. (It took its name from the pub behind the Royal Exchange at which they met). The chief point of objection was the Fund Academies' rule which limited students to those who had already passed through a classical training, including the demanding and lengthy training period required for learning to read Greek and Latin texts. The founders of the King's Head Society resolved to found an academy with a six years' course, where young men, without a general classical education, would receive it during the first two years and could then proceed to the usual classical-theological course.[9]
These academies were funded partly by fees for tuition and lodging, as many of them were run in large houses as boarding establishments. They were also funded by philanthropic Dissenters such as
Legal position
The letter of the law could make the running of a dissenting academy difficult or impossible. In the general framework according to which schools must be licensed by the bishop, and ministers (who made up most of the teaching staff) could be in legal trouble for the activities that held together their congregations, some academies simply shut down. For a short period (1714 to 1719) the Schism Act 1714 was in force, and aimed precisely to do that; but the troubles of the academies were mostly before this legislation.[citation needed][clarification needed]
Proceedings in
Nature of the academies
Several early academies became associated with particular theological positions.
Some academies were more broadminded in their teaching methodology, and in their attitudes towards possible methods of church governance. Indeed, several students at dissenting academies later became Anglicans. The dissenters themselves argued that their academies had stricter discipline than the universities, and were perceived by many to have promoted a more contemporary curriculum based on the practical sciences and modern history. In some of the larger academies French and High Dutch (German) were taught.[15][page needed] The tutors and the students of the dissenting academies contributed in fundamental ways to the development of ideas, notably in the fields of theology, philosophy, literature, and science.[citation needed]
In the nineteenth century the academies' original purpose to provide a higher education was largely superseded by the founding of the University of London and the provincial universities, which were open to dissenters, and by reform of Oxford and Cambridge.
Notable examples
London area
Homerton College, Cambridge started life as the dissenting academy Independent College, Homerton, then another village north of London.[20]
West Country
The
Sheriffhales Academy, Shropshire (1663–1697) under John Woodhouse.[23]
Midlands
Philip Doddridge was chosen in 1723 to conduct the academy being newly established at Market Harborough. It moved many times, and was known as Northampton Academy, Doddridge died in 1751 and the academy continued.[24] and is probably best known as Daventry Academy, which Joseph Priestley attended. The academy ended up in London under the name of Coward College, as it was largely supported by the bequest of William Coward who died 1738.[25] The college was one of three that amalgamated in 1850 into New College London. Hugh Farmer was educated at this college in its earlier days.[citation needed]
Shrewsbury Academy was started by James Owen in 1702. Owen died 1706 and his place was filled by Samuel Benion. The academy continued until Benion's death in 1708.[26]
North of England
Warrington Academy led eventually, via Manchester and York, to Harris Manchester College, Oxford. In 1757, John Seddon, a young minister in Warrington, established the academy. Among the tutors were Joseph Priestley (1761–1767) and Johann Reinhold Forster, a German scholar and naturalist. Forster went with Captain Cook in his second voyage round the world.[27]
Rathmell Academy, which had half a dozen homes, was set up by Richard Frankland in 1670.[28] The school moved to Attercliffe, a suburb of Sheffield, Yorkshire, leaving it at the end of July 1689, in consequence of the death of his favourite son, and returning to Rathmell. His pupil Timothy Jollie, independent minister at Sheffield, began Attercliffe Academy,[29] on a more restricted principle than Frankland's, apparently excluding mathematics "as tending to scepticism".[30]
See also
- List of dissenting academies (1660–1800)
- List of dissenting academies (19th century)
- List of Friends schools
- Congregational Board of Education
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-951016-0. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
- ^ The Lancet London: A Journal of British and Foreign Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, Physiology, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Public Health and News. Elsevier. 1853. p. 59. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
- ^ McLachlan, Herbert (1931). English Education Under the Test Acts: Being the History of the Nonconformist Academies, 1662-1820. Manchester University Press.
- ^ a b C. G. Bolam, Jeremy Goring, H.L. Short and Roger Thomas; The English Presbyterians from Elizabethan Puritanism to Modern Unitarianism; London, George Allen & Unwin, 1968.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England: their rise and progress, and their place among the educational systems of the country. Cambridge University Press. p. 54.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England: their rise and progress, and their place among the educational systems of the country. Cambridge University Press. pp. 54–55.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Samuel Lewis in A Topographical Dictionary of England (1831), under the entry for Highbury
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ McLachlan, Herbert (1931). English Education Under the Test Acts: Being the History of the Nonconformist Academies, 1662-1820. Manchester University Press.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 58–59.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19360. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Gordon, Lyndall (2005), Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. Virago Press. Page 42.
- ISBN 0-06-019802-8.
- ^ T. H. Simms (1979). Homerton College 1695 - 1978. Trustees of Homerton College.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 96–101.
- ^ W. Davies, The Tewkesbury Academy with sketches of its tutor and students [1905]
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 69–72.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 77–90.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. p. 96.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 72–74.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 105–130.
- ^ Parker, Irene (1914). Dissenting academies in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 64–69.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Gordon, Alexander (1889). "Frankland, Richard (1630–1698), nonconformist tutor". Dictionary of National Biography Vol. XX. Smith, Elder & Co. Retrieved 25 March 2009. The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
Further reading
- Dissenting Academies Online, a database sponsored by Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies and Queen Mary's University London.
- Mark Burden, A Biographical Dictionary of Tutors at the Dissenters' Private Academies, 1660–1729; Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies, 2013 [1].
- David J. Appleby; Black Bartholomew's Day: Preaching, Polemic and Restoration Nonconformity; Manchester University Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-7190-7561-2
- J. W. Ashley Smith; The Birth of Modern Education: The Contribution of the Dissenting Academies, 1660–1800; London, Independent Press, 1954
- Joshua Toulmin; An historical view of the state of the Protestant dissenters in England, and the progress of free enquiry and religious liberty; Bath & London, 1814
- A bibliography relating to the education of Unitarian ministers, and especially its history, can be found here