New College, Hackney (1786-96): a Selection of Printed and Archival Sources
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New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Stephen Burley, Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies Second edition, revised 2011 (First published 2010) 1 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies CONTENTS Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 6 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 8 2. NEW COLLEGE CHRONOLOGY, 1786-96 12 3. COLLEGE MEMBERS 19 3.1. Introduction 19 3.2. Notable Students 20 3.3. Full Student List 26 3.4. Tutors 35 3.5. Governors 41 3.6. Notable Benefactors 48 4. CURRICULUM 56 4.1. Introduction 56 4.2. Belsham on Daventry Academy 57 4.3. William Hazlitt, 6 October 1793 59 4.4. William Hazlitt, [October 1793] 61 4.5. William Hazlitt, [November 1793] 63 4.6. William Hazlitt, [late Autumn 1793] 65 4.7. Gilbert Wakefield’s Memoirs (1792) 67 5. ORIGINS 74 5.1. Introduction 74 5.2i. First Meeting, 13 Dec. 1785 (DWL MS 187.2, fol. 3) 75 5.2ii. First Meeting, 13 Dec. 1785 (DWL MS 38.14, fols. 1-2) 77 5.3. Second Meeting, 16 Dec. 1785 79 5.4. Third Meeting, 4 Jan. 1786 81 5.5. Resolutions, 28 Jan. 1786 84 5.6. Resolutions, 10 Mar. 1786 88 5.7. Governors’ Letter, 28 Mar. 1786 95 5.8. Printed Satirical Letter, 19 Apr. 1786 99 6. THE NEW COLLEGE MINUTE BOOK 103 6.1. Introduction 103 6.2. 27 July 1786 104 6.3. 5 July 1786 107 6.4. 18 July 1786 109 6.5. 24 Nov. 1786 111 6.6. 2 May 1787 114 2 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies 6.7. 29 June 1787 118 6.8. 10 Sept. 1788 124 6.9. 18 Nov. 1788 127 6.10. 13 Jan. 1789 133 6.11. 24 Mar. 1789 136 6.12. 20 Jan. 1790 138 6.13. 6 Apr. 1790 141 6.14. 25 May 1790 143 6.15. 10 Dec. 1790 145 6.16. 19 Jan. 1791 147 6.17. 1 Feb. 1791 150 6.18. 15 Feb. 1791 152 6.19. 22 Feb. 1791 153 6.20. 6 Mar. 1791 155 7. THE CHAIRMAN’S LETTER 158 7.1 Introduction 158 7.2 The Chairman’s Letter, 5 Aug. 1793 159 8. THE WODROW-KENRICK CORRESPONDENCE 161 8.1. Introduction 161 8.2. 28 Sept. 1793 162 8.3. 7 Oct. 1793 164 8.4. 12 Nov. 1793 166 8.5. 10 Jan. 1794 168 8.6. 22 Jan. 1794 169 8.7. 22 Mar. 1794 170 9. THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE 172 9.1. Introduction 172 9.2. September 1790 173 9.3. June 1791 174 9.4. July 1791 176 9.5. November 1791 177 9.6. November 1791 179 9.7. November 1791 181 9.8. April 1793 182 9.9. May 1793 183 9.10. May 1793 185 9.11. June 1793 186 9.12. July 1793 187 9.13. June 1796 188 9.14. June 1796 189 9.15. July 1796 190 3 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies 10. NEW COLLEGE POETRY 192 10.1. Introduction 192 10.2. John Aikin, ‘An Epistle to Mr. [Arthur] Aikin’ (1791) 193 10.3. Arthur Aikin, ‘A Poetic Epistle to [Charles] Wellbeloved’ (1792) 195 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY 197 4 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have relied heavily on the advice, support, and assistance of a number of people in the preparation of this publication. I am particularly indebted to the invaluable support of Isabel Rivers and David Wykes, whose expertise and guidance have helped me throughout my work over the last four years. I am also very grateful to Simon Dixon, Inga Jones, and Melanie Winterbotham for their help with academy students; Duncan Wu and Charles E. Robinson for their assistance with Hazlitt’s New College letters; Tessa Whitehouse for her very helpful suggestions on structure and presentation; my other colleagues at the Centre for Dissenting Studies - Mark Burden, Rosemary Dixon, Simon Mills, and Kyle Roberts – for their conversation and advice; the librarians and staff at Dr Williams’s Library; Sue Killoran, librarian of Harris Manchester College, Oxford; and Richard Coulton, Matthew Maugher, Matt Symonds for their advice about the technical aspects of the publication. I am deeply indebted to Joshua Bronson at Queen Mary for all his work in designing the New College, Hackney webpage. In addition, I would like to thank the Trustees of Dr Williams’s Library for permission to publish transcripts of selected entries from the Hackney College Minute Book, 1785-91 (MS 38.14), documents relating to the origins of New College (MS 187.2), and selections from the manuscript correspondence of James Wodrow and Samuel Kenrick (MS 24.157). The funding provided by the AHRC has been invaluable in enabling me to carry out this research. The financial support of the Trustees of Dr Williams’s Library has also been of the greatest help. In my efforts to identify the students, tutors, governors and benefactors of New College I have drawn on a range of sources which are listed in the bibliography. I am indebted, however, to three key sources in particular: British History Online: Committees for Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts – Minutes 1786-90 and 1827-8 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=232 The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/index.html?url=%2Findex.jsp The Surman Index Online http://surman.english.qmul.ac.uk/ 5 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies ABBREVIATIONS Belsham Thomas Belsham, Memoirs of the Late Reverend Theophilus Lindsey (London, 1812) BHO British History Online, Committees for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=232 Birm. MS 281 Birmingham University, MS 281, ‘A View of Academical Institutions founded by Protestant Dissenters in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries’, fols. 123-125 Birtwhistle John Birtwhistle, ‘An Ardent Naturalist – William Russell Notcutt (1774?–1800): Chemist, Botanist and One of Davy’s First Nitrous Oxide Subjects’, The History of Anaesthesia Society Proceedings, 28 (2000), 60-66. Burke J. Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland 2 vols. (London, 1852) Clayden Peter William Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (London, 1887) Debrett John Debrett, The Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 2 vols. (London, 1822) Ditchfield G. M. Ditchfield, ed., The Letters of Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 2008) DWL Dr Williams’s Library, London Gorton John Gorton, A General Biographical Dictionary 4 vols. (London, 1851) Haakonssen Knud Haakonssen, ed., Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 1996) Hirschberg Julius Hirschberg, The History of Ophthalmology 11 vols. (London, 1982) JRUL John Rylands University Library, Manchester 6 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies Lankester Edwin Ray Lankester, The History of the Collections Contained in the Natural History Department of the British Museum (London, 1904) McCarthy William McCarthy, Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment (Baltimore, MY, 2008) Nightingale Benjamin Nightingale, Lancashire Nonconformity, or, Sketches, Historical and Descriptive of the Old Congregational and Presbyterian Churches in the County 6 vols. (Manchester, 1890-93) ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/index.html?url=%2Findex.jsp Sikes H. M. Sikes, ed., The Letters of William Hazlitt (New York, 1978) SIO The Surman Index Online http://www.english.qmul.ac.uk/drwilliams/research/surman.html Stephenson H. W. Stephenson, William Hazlitt and Hackney College (London, 1930) Stone The Whole Proceedings of the Trial of Mr. William Stone, on a Charge of High Treason (London, 1796) Thomas David Oswald Thomas, The Honest Mind: The Thought and Work of Richard Price (Oxford, 1977) Wade Richard Wade, The Rise of Nonconformity in Manchester (Manchester, 1880) Wu Duncan Wu, William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man (Oxford, 2008) 7 Stephen Burley ([email protected]) New College, Hackney (1786-96): A Selection of Printed and Archival Sources Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION The story of New College, Hackney begins in the London Coffee House, Cheapside on 13 December 1785. On that evening an eclectic group of wealthy, reform-minded Protestant dissenters convened to discuss the problems that they and their brethren faced in securing suitable educational opportunities for their sons. Unable to take degrees from the universities at Oxford and Cambridge unless they pledged allegiance to the Thirty- Nine Articles of the Church of England, they had also recently witnessed the closure of two major dissenting academies at Warrington and Hoxton. Without suitable academies to educate and train new generations of nonconformist ministers, the future of liberal Protestant dissent appeared to be at stake. Exactly one month later, on 13 January 1786, they therefore resolved to establish a new academy in or near to London. This was the beginning of New College, Hackney (1786-96), perhaps the most ambitious and controversial of the eighteenth-century academies. The early history of New College is one of rapid growth and development.