Mark BurdenUniversity of Oxford

September 2012

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Beacons of progress in an age of educational decline?

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Irene Parker , Nonconformist Academies in England (1914): nonconformist academies, ‘diverging from the main stream of education, drained off more and more of its life’: they were ‘the greatest schools of their day’, thoroughly ‘alive and active’ in a period when the universities were ‘sterile’.

J. W. Ashley Smith, The Birth of Modern Education (1954): the dissenting academies initiated ‘large changes in the content and treatment of the university curriculum’

The Act of Uniformity (1662) – Defining Dissenters and their Academies

(1) Declaration for ministers: I A.B. Do here declare my unfeigned assent, and consent to all, and every thing contained, and prescribed in, and by the

Book intituled, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites, and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of England, together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David, Pointed as they are to be sung, or said in Churches; and the form, or manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

(2) Declaration for ministers and tutors: … every Dean, Canon, and Prebendary of every Cathedral, or Collegiate Church, and all Masters, and other Heads, Fellows,

Chaplains, and Tutors of, or in any Colledge, Hall, House of Learning, or Hospital, and every Publick Professor, and Reader in either of the Universities, and in every Colledge else where, and every Parson, Vicare, Curate, Lecturer, and every other person in holy Orders, and every School-master keeping any publick, or private Schoole, and every person instructing, or teaching any youth in any House, or private Family as a Tutor, or School=master, who upon the first day of May, which shall be in the year of our Lord God, One thousand six hundred sixty two, or at any time thereafter shall be incumbent, or have possession of any Deanry, Canonry, Prebend, Master=ship, Head=ship, Fellow=ship, Professors place, or Readers place, Parsonage, Vicarage, or any other Ecclesiastical Dignity, or Promotion, or of any Curates place, Lecture, or School; or shall instruct or teach any youth as Tutor, or School-master, shall before the Feast=day of Saint Bartholomew, which shall be in the year of our Lord, One thousand six hundred sixty two, or at or before his, or their respective admission to be incumbent, or have possession aforesaid, subscribe the Declaration or Acknowledgment following, Scilicet,

I A.B. Do declare that it is not lawfull upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King, and that I do abhor

that traitorous Position of taking Arms by His Authority against His Person, or against those that are Commissionated by Him; And that I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by Law established: and I do declare that I do hold there lies no obligation upon me, or on any other person from the Oath commonly called the Solemne League and Covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of Government, either in Church, or State; And that the same was in it self an unlawfull Oath, and Imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws, and Liberties of this Kingdom.

 

Locations and Dates of the Dissenters’ Academies, 1662-1720

Abergavenny: 1698?-1702Alcester: between 1680 and 1720Attercliffe: c.1691-1714Axminster: fl. 1695Bedworth: c.1710-1730?Bicester: fl. c. 1674Bethnal Green: c.1690-c.1714Bridgend: 1698?-1702?Bridgwater: c.1693-1747?Broad Oak/Shrewsbury: c.1698-1708Caldwell/Findern/Derby: c.1710-56Carmarthen: c.1707-1733 [and later]Coventry: c.1694-1699Dartmouth: date unknown – 1691DerbyHartshorn/Findern: c.1710-20Dudley/Newbury: c.1692-1695Dusthorp: c.1668-1674Exeter: c.1693-1719Gloucester: c.1696-1698Gloucester/Tewkesbury: c.1708-1719Gloucester/Stratford: c.1720-c.1730Hungerford: c.1696-2700Ipswich: c.1692-1704Islington/Clapham/Monkwell Street: c.1672-

1691Islington: c.1680Lyme Regis: c.1682-1691?Newington Green/Little Britain: c.1679-1705Newington Green: c.1666-1679Newington Green: c.1666-1685

Manchester: 1699-1705Manchester: 1701-1708Mansfield: fl. 1683Mixenden: c.1703-1716Moorfields: starts before 1680Nailsworth: c.1719Nettlebed: c.1667-1674Nottingham: c.1714-1727Oswestry/Shrewsbury: c.1690-1706Pinner: c.1690-1708Rathmell/Attercliffe/Rathmell: 1670-98Saffron Walden: c.1696-1704Sheffield: starts 1704Shepton Mallet: c.1720Sheriffhales: c.1675-1697Shrewsbury: dates unknownShrewsbury: 1708-c.1718Southwark/Hoxton: 1699-1729Sulby: c.1678-1682Taunton: c.1672-1759Tiverton: c.1720-1730Tubney: dates unknownTunley: dates unknownUxbridge: fl. 1696Wapping: fl. 1679-83Warrington: fl. 1714, 1733Whitehaven/Bolton: c.1705-1729Wickhambrook: c.1674-1688

Number of students identified by name (not an indication of total number of students)

The Rathmell academy: 308The Taunton academy: 146The Derby academies: 102The Bridgwater academy: 80The Attercliffe academy: 77The Sheriffhales academy: 63Samuel Benion’s academy: 57The Tewkesbury academy: 54The Bethnal Green academy: 51The Carmarthen academy: 50The Exeter academy: 45Thomas Rowe’s academy: 34Thomas Goodwin’s academy: 32The Manchester academies: 30Thomas Doolittle’s academy: 26William Paine’s academy: 26The Brynllywarch academy: 26

Charles Morton’s academy: 23James Owen’s academy: 23Samuel Cradock’s academy: 21Joshua Oldfield’s academy: 19The Ipswich academy: 11

Well-known early academy students: Daniel Defoe (novelist and

political pamphleteer) Isaac Watts (hymn writer) Joseph Butler (philosopher) Samuel Wesley (father of John and

Charles Wesley) Edmund Calamy and Daniel Neal

(historians) Thomas Secker (Archbishop)

Education and careers of Frankland’s students

Fluctuations in No. of Entrants at the Dissenters’ Academies

Political and Intellectual Controversies involving the dissenters’ academies:

1. 1662: the Act of Uniformity requires puritan tutors to submit to unpalatable political and religious declarations.

2. 1672: Charles II’s ‘Declaration of Indulgence’ temporarily allows dissenting ministers to gain a licence to preach, encouraging dissenters to educate their children in private academies.

3. 1680s: following the opposition of many dissenters to the prospect (and, from 1685, the reality) of a Catholic monarch (James II), the government cracks down on illegal worship and oversees a propaganda campaign against the dissenters’ private academies.

4. 1689: following James II’s replacement by William III, the Toleration Act safeguards limited rights of worship for Protestant dissenters, but does not address the contested issue of the legality of their academies

5. 1690s: the Congregational tutors Stephen Lobb and Isaac Chauncey are unfairly accused by leading Presbyterians of being ‘antinomians’ (i.e. disregarding the moral law). They respond by accusing their rivals of being ‘neonomians’ (emphasising the moral law over faith).

6. 1703-5: the publication of an open ‘letter’ by Samuel Wesley (formerly a dissenter, but now a clergyman) sparks a heated debate about whether the academies are still teaching the ‘King-Killing doctrines’. Notable contributors on Wesley’s side are the C of E ministers Henry Sacheverell and Theophilus Dorrington; on the dissenters’ side are Edmund Calamy, Samuel Palmer, and the tutor James Owen. In 1705 the issues are raised by Convocation and in Parliament.

7. 1714: Queen Anne’s parliament passes the Schism Act; this reaffirms the principle that all schoolteachers require a licence, but also formally extends it to any person teaching in a dissenting ‘seminary’. Although some academies temporarily close, there are no recorded prosecutions of academy tutors, and the Act is repealed by George I’s government in 1719.

8. 1719: Joseph Hallett (tutor at an academy in Exeter) is accused of Arianism by his local ministerial association; his academy is forced to close and he is locked out of his own chapel.

Subjects and Notebooks from the Dissenters’ Private Academies (1660-1720)

Typical Subjects Studied:

LogicNatural PhilosophyPneumatology (scientific study of the soul)MathematicsAstronomyChronologyGeographyMetaphysicsMoral philosophyTheology or DivinityBiblical scholarshipHistoryJewish AntiquitiesClassical literatureLanguages (e.g. Latin, Greek, Hebrew)

Some Surviving Student Notebooks, 1660-1720

Birmingham University Library: notebooks from Samuel Jones’s Tewkesbury academy

Bristol Baptist College: notebooks from the academies of Samuel Jones, Samuel Benion, Stephen James, and Thomas Rowe

Dr Williams’s Library (including the Congregational Library, and the New College Manuscripts): notebooks from the academies of Samuel Jones, Stephen James, Henry Grove, Thomas Doolittle, Charles Morton, John Eames, Thomas Ridgley ...

Harris Manchester College, Oxford: notebooks from the academies of Thomas Dixon and Henry Grove

Harvard College: notebook from Charles Morton’s academy

Massachusetts Historical Society: notebooks from Charles Morton’s academy

Wellcome Library: notebooks from the academies of Charles Morton and Robert Darch

Reading and Assessment

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Teaching methods

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Debates concerning the Content and Pedagogy of Academy Courses, 1660-1720

1. Should Aristotle’s topics and methods form the basis of an academy course of study?2. Does Descartes’s ‘cogito’ provide a framework for squaring new scientific theories with

Calvinist theological principles?3. To what extent should lectures and wider reading be conducted in Latin or English?4. Are the new methods in logic developed by Antoine Arnauld compatible with puritan ethics?5. What is the role of experimental science in the natural philosophy curriculum?6. Should the study of ethics comprise a system of moral philosophy, or a practical guide to life?7. (after 1690:) Is there any value in John Locke’s empirical philosophy, or does it lead to the

promotion of heterodox theological opinions?8. Is mathematics a suitable subject for ministerial students, or does it ‘tend towards scepticism’?9. (after 1710:) How should Newton’s mathematics be taught?10. Is ‘preaching’ a subject worthy of study independently from theology?11. To what extent is it necessary to study Greek, Hebrew and other ancient languages in order to

understand the Bible?12. How does one square God’s eternal, immutable decree with a human being’s freedom to

commit sin?13. What are the limits to ‘free inquiry’, and how can they be enforced?14. Is the study of the soul (‘pneumatology’) a branch of natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, or

theology?15. Is education in a private academy sufficient for a student to enter the ministry, or should they

also study at a university (e.g. in Scotland or the Netherlands)?