Dissenting academies

After the Uniformity Act 1662, for about two centuries, it was difficult for any but practising members of the Church of England to gain degrees from the old English universities, at Cambridge and Oxford. The University of Oxford, in particular, required – until the Oxford University Act 1854 – a religious test on admission that was comparable to that for joining the Church.[1] The situation at the University of Cambridge was that a statutory test was required to take a bachelor's degree.[2]

English Dissenters in this context were Nonconformist Protestants who could not in good conscience subscribe (i.e. conform) to the beliefs of the Church of England. As they were debarred from taking degrees in the only two English universities, many of them attended the dissenting academies. If they could afford it, they completed their education at the universities of Leyden, Utrecht, Glasgow or Edinburgh, the last, particularly, those who were studying medicine or law.[3] Many students attending Utrecht were supported by the Presbyterian Fund.[4]

While the religious reasons mattered most, the geography of university education also was a factor. The plans for a Durham College of Oliver Cromwell provided an attempt to break the educational monopoly of Oxbridge, and while it failed because of the political change in 1660, the founder of Rathmell Academy was Richard Frankland, who may have been involved in the Durham College project. Almost as soon as dissenting academies began to appear, Frankland was backed by those who wished to see an independent university-standard education available in the north of England.[5]

Tutors in the academies were initially drawn from the ejected ministers of 1662, who had left the Church of England after the passing of the Uniformity Act, and many of whom had English university degrees. After that generation, some tutors did not have those academic credentials to support their reputations, although in many cases other universities, particularly the Scottish institutions that were sympathetic to their Presbyterian views, awarded them honorary doctorates.

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.

The Common Fund Board, founded in 1689, gave scholarships to Presbyterian and Congregational candidates for the ministry; its successor, the Presbyterian Fund Board, continued into the middle of the nineteenth century. An education at a dissenting academy was not the only option for the Fund Board, since a candidate could also be sponsored at a Scottish university, or elsewhere. A gap opened up between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists, as the Independents started to be called, for reasons of doctrine.

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 (after the pub behind the Royal Exchange at which they met) who were dissatisfied with the management of the Congregational Fund Board. The chief point of objection was the 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 King's Head Society resolved to found an academy where young men without a general classical education would receive it during their first two years and could then proceed to the usual classical-theological course.[9]

The Coward Trust from 1743 funded Daventry Academy and a London academy under David Jennings, but was distinct from the ordinary Congregational funding.[10]

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 was in force, and aimed precisely to do that; but the troubles of the academies were mostly before this legislation.

Proceedings in ecclesiastical courts were quite common in the 17th century, for example in the case of the tutor Benjamin Robinson.[11] The degree of religious toleration in the later half of the seventeenth century varied considerably according to laws passed by Parliament, and also in line with the public mood. Some academies, such as that of John Shuttlewood,[12] operated in remote areas of the countryside, and some tutors were required to leave towns where they had previously performed their ministry, for example under the Five Mile Act. The Toleration Act of 1689 under the reign of William III and Mary II did not mention the dissenters' academies, and proceedings continued against dissenting tutors throughout the 1690s. There were also cases of actions against dissenting grammar schools, for example the proceedings against Isaac Gilling in the 1710s. In 1723 the regium donum, initially a grant to support Irish Presbyterians, became a national subsidy, and subsequently dissenting academies were more generally accepted.

Several early academies became associated with particular theological positions. Richard Frankland of Rathmell Academy and Timothy Jollie of Attercliffe, founders of two of the most celebrated early academies, opposed any departure from Calvinist theology. It was rumoured that Jollie even forbade mathematics "as tending to scepticism and infidelity", although several of his students later became extremely proficient in the mathematics.[4]

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.[13] 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.

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 William Coward (1647–1738), whose "will set up a trust fund 'for the education and training up of young men ... to qualify them for the ministry of the gospel among the Protestant Dissenters', thus continuing the financial support he had given to such students in his lifetime".[14] Sometimes this funding was organised along the lines of subscribers.[15]

The Independent or Congregational Fund Board was established in 1695 (i) to assist poor ministers, (2) to give young men who had already received a classical education, the theological and other training preparatory to the Christian ministry.[6]

In 1730, the King's Head Society was founded by laymen in London who were dissatisfied with the management of the Fund Academies. The chief point of objection was the Fund Academies rule which limited its students to those who had already passed through a classical training. The founder 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]

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 the reform of Oxford and Cambridge.

• List of dissenting academies (1660–1800)
• List of dissenting academies (19th century)
• List of Friends schools
• Congregational Board of Education

• 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 .
• 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