New College at Hackney
The New College at Hackney (more ambiguously known as Hackney College) was a
dissenting academy set up in Hackney in April 1786 by the social and political reformer Richard Price and others; Hackney at that time was a village on the outskirts of London, by Unitarians.[1] It was in existence from 1786 to 1796. The writer William Hazlitt was among its pupils, sent aged 15 to prepare for the Unitarian ministry,[2] and some of the best-known Dissenting intellectuals spent time on its staff.[3]
History
The year 1786 marked the dissolution of
Coward Trust, under Samuel Morton Savage, closed its doors in the summer of 1785.[4] Some of the funding that had backed Warrington was available for a new dissenting academy for the London area, as well as for a northern successor in Manchester. The London building plans were ambitious, but proved the undoing of the New College, which was soon strained financially.[5]
The successors in the movement as a whole were Manchester New College, and a new Exeter College under Joseph Bretland, which existed from 1799 to 1805.[6]
Staff
Its staff included:
- Thomas Belsham who left Daventry Academy in 1789 on becoming a Unitarian, as professor of divinity and resident tutor;[7]
- Andrew Kippis;[8]
- George Cadogan Morgan from 1787 to 1891, who lectured there on electricity;
- Richard Price;
- Joseph Priestley, resident in Hackney from 1791 to 1794,[9] as lecturer on history and natural philosophy, principally chemistry;[7][10]
- Abraham Rees who was tutor in Hebrew and mathematics;[11]
- and from 1790 Gilbert Wakefield.[8]
Students
Among the students were:
- Arthur Aikin;[12]
- Francis Baily
- John Bostock attended Priestley's lectures;[13]
- William Hazlitt;[14]
- Mary Hays
- Thomas Dix Hincks;[15]
- Homerton College, moved to Hackney on becoming a Unitarian, then a tutor in experimental philosophy, moving away in 1792 to fill Priestley's ministry in Birmingham;[16]
- John Jones, related to David Jones;[8][17][18]
- Jeremiah Joyce;[19]
- John Kentish, who left Daventry Academy with other students, including William Shepherd, in 1788, for religious reasons;[20]
- Harry Priestley, Dr Priestley's youngest son.
- Thomas Starling Norgate;[21]
- William Shepherd;[22]
- James Smith (1775–1839);[23]
- Joseph Lomas Towers;[24]
- Charles Wellbeloved.[8]
Another Hackney College, properly Hackney Itineracy, also known as
Homerton College was at this time in the parish of Hackney, and had been in some form from 1730, as a less ambitious academy; when the New College folded, its future became part of Homerton College's, which since 1894 has been in Cambridge.[25] Robert Aspland set up a successor Unitarian college at Hackney, in 1813.[26]
See also
Previous institutions known as Hackney College
.
Notes
- ISBN 9781783162161. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Herbert J McLachlan, The Old Hackney College 1786-1796; Trans. Unitarian Historical Soc.; 3(1923-26) 185-205.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ David L. Wykes, The Dissenting Academy and Rational Dissent, pp. 131-2 in Knud Haakonssen (editor), Enlightenment and Religion: Rational dissent in eighteenth-century Britain (1996).
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ a b Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ a b c d Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ William P. Griffith, Priestley in London, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Aug., 1983), pp. 1-16.
- ^ Joseph Priestley. Heads of Lectures on ... Chemistry, delivered at the New College in Hackney; J Johnson, London, 1794.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ ODNB article on Bostock.
- ^ H W Stephenson; Hackney College and William Hazlitt; Trans. Unitarian Historical Soc.; 4 (1927-30), 219-47, 376-411.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ "Ben David Background". www.1john57.com. Archived from the original on 22 November 2001.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ ODNB
- ^ 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. .
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ ODNB, for father Joseph Towers.
- ^ "Homerton College, Cambridge". www.homertonconference.com. Archived from the original on 16 December 2009.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .