Mark Burden, Academical Learning in the Dissenters' Private Academies

1 ACADEMICAL LEARNING IN THE DISSENTERS’ PRIVATE ACADEMIES, 1660-1720 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Mark Burden English Department Queen Mary, University of London 2012 2 Abstract Previous assessments of the early academies of Protestant dissenters in England and Wales (1660-1720) have celebrated their tutors’ achievements in defying the Act of Uniformity and the Test Acts, and have argued that they pioneered a modern curriculum. Despite these views, there has been little scholarly investigation into the academies. This thesis evaluates the available sources for the first time, examining the political, philosophical, and theological controversies in which the academies were involved, as well as examining the lives and careers of their tutors and students in greater detail than has hitherto been possible. The introduction explores the reception of the academies from the late seventeenth century until the present day, exposing the paucity of evidence and the abundance of polemic which have characterised previous accounts. Chapter 1 provides a detailed examination of academies operated by nonconformists prior to the Toleration Act, reassessing the contribution of ejected university tutors, surveying attempted prosecutions, and highlighting political controversies. The second chapter extends the narrative to academies run by Protestant dissenters from the Toleration Act (1689) to the repeal of the Schism Act (1719); it contains the first-ever detailed analysis of the minutes of the London-based denominational Fund Boards, and a survey of the careers of former academy students. Chapter 3 re-evaluates the teaching of philosophy in the dissenters’ earliest academies, using newly-identified manuscript works by tutors and students to explore the study of logic, natural philosophy, and ethics. Chapter 4 uses a combination of printed and manuscript sources to examine the teaching of religious subjects at the academies, including preaching, religious history, Jewish antiquities, pneumatology, and theology; it concludes with a survey of the contribution of dissenting tutors and students to debates in the 1710s concerning subscription to an agreed form of words on the Trinity. Declaration: I declare this thesis to be entirely my own work. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Acknowledgments 5 List of Abbreviations 6 ACADEMICAL LEARNING IN THE DISSENTERS’ PRIVATE ACADEMIES, 1660-1720 Introduction Writing the history of the dissenters’ academies, 10 1693-2011 Samuel Wesley and the history of the dissenters’ academies 10 Edmund Calamy’s accounts of tutors 13 Table: Calamy’s descriptions of tutors 15 Eighteenth-century antiquarianism and the history of the dissenters’ 16 academies David Bogue and James Bennett, History of Dissenters (1808-14) 18 Walter Wilson’s Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London 20 (1808-12) Joshua Toulmin’s Historical View (1814) 23 Nineteenth-century antiquarians: Joshua Wilson and Joseph Hunter 27 Nineteenth and early twentieth-century county histories 30 Francis Nicholson, Ernest Axon, and Alexander Gordon 33 Irene Parker 36 Herbert McLachlan 38 J. W. Ashley Smith 39 Writing the history of the academies: 1954-2011 Chapter 1 Nonconformists and their academies, 1660-89 44 Nonconformist tutors and the Restoration religious settlements, 45 1659-1673 The earliest of the nonconformists’ academies: 1667-1673 54 The growth of the nonconformists’ academies, c. 1673-c. 1690 61 The prosecution of nonconformist tutors, 1662-90 81 The Stamford Oath 91 Conclusion: the decline of the nonconformists’ academies, 1679-1702 100 Chapter 2 The dissenters’ private academies, from the Toleration 102 Act (1689) to the repeal of the Schism Act (1719) Introduction 102 The Dissenters’ Academies after the Toleration Act, 1689-1719 103 Financing students: the denominational fund boards, 1690-1720 107 The dissenters’ academies and political controversies, 1702-1719 125 Conclusion: dissenting tutors and their students, 1689-1719 138 4 Chapter 3 Philosophy at the dissenters’ private academies 144 The subjects studied 145 Diagram 1: Charles Morton’s prefatory scheme of learning 147 Table 1: list of subjects taught at the dissenters’ early academies 154 Teaching methods 155 Logic: the instrumental science 165 The speculative sciences: physics and mathematics 180 The practical sciences: politics and ethics 193 Conclusion 202 Chapter 4 Religious subjects at the dissenters’ private academies 204 Church history and controversy 205 Jewish antiquities 213 Pneumatology 220 Religious instruction: preaching and theology 228 Systems of theology: Thomas Doolittle and Stephen James 236 The dissenters’ academies and the subscription controversy, 1713-19 244 Conclusion: the interaction of social and intellectual forces at the 252 dissenters’ private academies, 1660-1720 Appendices Appendix 1 Locations and dates of the dissenters’ private academies, 256 1660-c. 1720 Appendix 2 Allowances to tutors and students by the Common Fund, 263 Congregational Fund Board, and Presbyterian Fund Board, 1690-1751 Appendix 3 Students at the dissenters’ private academies, 272 c. 1660-c. 1720 Appendix 4 Education of ministers in the Common Fund Survey 294 (1690-2) Bibliography 1 List of manuscripts 299 2(a) Printed primary sources 309 2(b) Printed secondary sources 328 5 Acknowledgments A project such as this, in which an important objective has been to uncover many more sources than were previously known, incurs a great many debts. The research was funded by a grant from the Religion and Society Programme at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and a bursary from Dr Williams’s Trust. Much of the primary research was undertaken in the British Library and the Bodleian Library, and I owe the librarians at both a very great deal. I have spent many happy hours at Harris Manchester College Library, Oxford, and at Bristol Baptist College Library; the librarians and archivists at both colleges receive my thanks for their kindness and generosity. I would also like to express my gratitude to the staff at John Rylands University Library (Manchester), Birmingham University Library, Harvard College Library, Senate House Library, and Queen Mary, University of London. I received warm welcome and encouragement at Lambeth Palace Library, the Royal Society Library and Archives, and the Wellcome Library. This thesis includes materials from Cheshire and Chester Archives, Devon Record Office (Exeter Branch), Gloucestershire Archives, Northumberland Record Office, Nottinghamshire Archives, Shropshire Archives, Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich Branch), Warwickshire Record Office, and the National Archives; I am grateful to everyone who works at these record offices, and at the numerous other archives which I have visited. Particular thanks must go to all the staff at Dr Williams’s Library and the Congregational Library, for their tireless academic endeavours and companionship over the last four years; together we have discovered more about the early academies than could ever have been hoped. In the last three years, four post-doctoral students have been at work on the eighteenth-century dissenting academies: the amount that I have learnt from Dr Simon Dixon, Dr Inga Jones, Dr Rosemary Dixon, and Dr Kyle Roberts is incalculable. My research has overlapped with that of three other PhD students who have been working in related areas: I am hugely indebted to Dr Tessa Whitehouse, Dr Stephen Burley, and Dr Simon Mills for sharing their skills, good sense, and friendship. From the ‘Dissenting Academies Project’, special thanks must go to Professor M. A. Stewart for his advice on logic, Dr David Bellhouse for reading an early draft of the section on mathematics, Professor John Gascoigne for his comments on dissenters’ science, and Professor Francoise Deconinck-Broissard for her thoughts on pedagogy. Dr Rick Kennedy has my gratitude for his assistance on the life and writings of Charles Morton. I would also like to thank my examiners Dr Mark Goldie and Dr Stephen Clucas. Above all, this project could not have been completed without the boundless knowledge, energy, enthusiasm, and time afforded to it (and me) by my supervisors, Professor Isabel Rivers and Dr David L. Wykes. 6 List of Abbreviations Ashley Smith J. W. Ashley Smith, The Birth of Modern Education. The Contribution of the Dissenting Academies, 1660- 1800 (London, 1954) Bogue and Bennett David Bogue and James Bennett, History of Dissenters, from the Revolution in 1688, to the Year 1808, 4 vols. (London, 1808-12) Brockett, Exeter Assembly The Exeter Assembly: The Minutes of the Assemblies of the United Brethren of Devon and Cornwall, 1691- 1717, ed. Allan Brockett (Torquay, 1963) Calamy, Account Edmund Calamy, An Abridgement of Mr. Baxter’s History of his Life and Times. With an Account of the Ministers, &c. who were Ejected after the Restauration, of King Charles II, 2 vols. (London, 1713), vol. 2 Calamy, Continuation Edmund Calamy, A Continuation of the Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and Schoolmasters, who were Ejected and Silenced after the Restoration in 1660, By or Before the Act for Uniformity, 2 vols. (London, 1727) Calamy, Own Life Edmund Calamy, An Historical Account of My Own Life, with Some Reflections on the Times I have Lived in, 1671-1731, ed. J. T. Rutt, 2 vols. (London, 1829) Clegg, Diary James Clegg, Extracts from the Diary and Autobiography of the Rev. James Clegg, ed. Henry Kirke (Buxton, 1899) Clegg, John Ashe James Clegg, Assistance

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