THE EARLY HISTORY OF COLEEGE

G. M. DITCHFIELD, B.A., PH.D.

ROBABEY no topic needs as little introduction to scholars Pin Eancashire and Cheshire as that of Dissenting academies. Historians and antiquarians alike have seized upon their records and held them up for the admiring gaze of an enthusiastic readership. Students of theology and of education have found similar reward in the study of these centres of learning which stood outside the Anglican establishment. The eighteenth century was, after all, a period in which Nonconformists were excluded from the two English universities and it was therefore not surprising that they should set up their own colleges all over the country. Their purpose was to prepare a trained Dissenting ministry and to offer a broad, general education to lay students, many of whom were destined for commercial or professional careers. Some of these institutions have been studied in con­ siderable detail. In particular, a great deal of attention has been given to the academy which flowered brilliantly if briefly at Warrington in the second half of the eighteenth century. The monograph on this subject by the late Dr Herbert McEachlan, supported by a weighty assembly of older literature, has secured due recognition for this Eancashire Dissenting enterprise. 1 No other individual academy has received comparable treatment. As a result, the image of Warrington is inevitably projected over any consideration of Dissenting education in the north west. It has certainly overshadowed the college founded in its wake at Manchester in 1786. This latter institution, known as the 'New College', had to overcome numerous early financial vicissitudes and changes of location as it followed the older eighteenth- century practice among such academies of moving according to the availability of a tutor. For some years its survival seemed in doubt. Yet it retained the name of its birthplace and finally settled on a permanent basis at Oxford in 1889. 2 81 82 MANCHESTER COLLEGE The New College spent the first seventeen years of its existence at Manchester before moving to in 1803. It has a claim, therefore, to be ranked alongside Warrington in the Lancastrian scholarly tradition. Unfortunately, this preliminary period is ill- documented and is, in fact, accorded only seventeen pages in the official work on the college by the Rev. Valentine Davis.3 Local histories and the Manchester press gave little real attention to the college apart from scattered references to the bare facts of its existence. It was treated slightingly by Robert Halley in his work on Lancashire nonconformity. 4 Of these first seventeen years, the last five (1798-1803) are particularly obscure. There is a complete gap in the college archives for these years: the names of the new entrants went unrecorded.5 Consequently we are less well informed about these early years of Manchester College than about any other period in its history. They have always been regarded as the dim and undistinguished fore­ runner of the more auspicious times that were to follow. The aim of the present paper is to elucidate this early period and especially its last five years. It will suggest that the lack of records does not necessarily indicate inefficiency or irrelevance, and that the attainments of the fledgling institution were rather greater than has been recognised. It will enquire about the college's strengths and weaknesses its curriculum, finances and fees, together with the nature of its support. The main source of information for these years is the diary of Samuel Pipe- Wolferstan, a Staffordshire landed gentleman of Statfold Hall, near Tamworth, who entered his son Stanley as a pupil at the college in the session 1801-2.6 The value of this diary is three­ fold. In the first place, it not only provides evidence of Man­ chester College in its remotest period, but it also tells us something of its nature from an unusual point of view. For Pipe-Wolferstan was, at least nominally, a member of the Church of , and Anglican accounts of Dissenting academies are rare. Secondly, the diary constitutes an external, as opposed to an internal, source of information for the college. Much of our existing knowledge of the organisation of Dissenting education is derived from the internal, institutional records of individual academies and perhaps there has been too much dependence on these sources. The impressions of an outside witness form a useful alternative. Thirdly, Pipe-Wolferstan provides the out­ sider's view of that celebrated scientific intellectual elite of Manchester at the turn of the century, of which the college was an integral part. At first glance, Manchester would seem an unlikely choice for Pipe-Wolferstan to have made. He was of Staffordshire origins MANCHESTER COLLEGE 83 and had been educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, before succeeding to the family estates in his native county. He had few personal connections in the north-west and it is doubtful whether he had ever visited Manchester before 1801. The education of his son, however, was causing Pipe-Wolferstan serious anxiety. In 1801, the year of his entry to Manchester College, the boy Stanley was aged sixteen. His early tuition had been undertaken by small household schools, first at Tamworth and later at Selborne, Hampshire. In neither case had Pipe- Wolferstan felt satisfied with the curriculum or with the school's discipline. By 1801 some sort of crisis had arisen. For a while he contemplated, without enthusiasm, the prospect of placing his son at one of the better known public schools. But instead he chose a Dissenting academy, and one must ask why, for here is evidence of the growing reputation of Manchester College. In fact he had a long-standing acquaintance with Dissent. Early in life he had been led by intellectual curiosity and wide theological reading to adopt a kind of speculative , a creed to which he adhered for many years. Such heterodoxy was bound to appear suspicious and faintly subversive to the country gentry circles amongst which Pipe-Wolferstan lived. This was especially true in the aftermath of the French revolu­ tion, when religious and political radicalism seemed to many to bear the taint of Jacobinism. In Staffordshire, therefore, he was obliged to be rather surreptitious in expressing his theological opinions and to conform, albeit reluctantly, to Anglican worship. On the other hand, Pipe-Wolferstan felt bound by no such inhibitions whenever he journeyed to to unravel the legal complexities of his estate. He belonged to the Unitarian congregation of Essex Street, the Strand. His diary provides abundant evidence of the gratification he experienced in ming­ ling with the avant-garde metropolitan circle of which this chapel formed the centre. It was in this liberal atmosphere, which included , a former tutor at Warrington, that Pipe-Wolferstan first learned of Manchester College. Even before the opening of the college, the Manchester Dissenters had been held in the highest regard by their London counter­ parts. From the minister of the chapel, the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, came only praise for the new institution and for its founders and Thomas Barnes. Lindsey himself contributed £20 to the college in 1808. 7 There were Manchester people at Lindsey's chapel from time to time. In July 1791, the merchant Thomas Nicholson and his wife attended a service there and were favourably impressed. 8 In the same year Priestley preached at Mosley Street chapel in 84 MANCHESTER COLLEGE Manchester and was 'much applauded by the generality'. 9 On visiting London, moreover, Pipe-Wolferstan displayed a lively interest in that other major Dissenting academic foundation of the 1780s, Hackney College. There is evidence that he attended at least one of its committee meetings before its dissolution in 1796.10 By 1801, therefore, he was no stranger to radical Dissent, to Dissenting academies or to the reputation of Manchester. At the same time, Pipe-Wolferstan had developed an acquain­ tanceship with some of the prominent figures at Manchester College. In 1790 he was clearly impressed by the preaching of its first principal, Thomas Barnes, which he heard at the Salters Hall meeting house in London.11 Seven years later, on a visit to Oxford, he met , whom he described as 'A Quaker Mathematics teacher at Dr. Barnes's Academy'.12 He had a slight friendship, too, with the Rev. George Walker, who suc­ ceeded Barnes as principal in 1798 at the end of a long and active career in the Dissenting ministry and in Dissenting poli­ tics. Like Priestley, Walker had taught at Warrington Academy. Pipe-Wolferstan had heard him preach on a number of occa­ sions, both in London and in , where Walker had been minister of the High Street Presbyterian chapel.13 In addition to these personal connections, the diarist read assidu­ ously amongst the works of Dissenting educationalists. Not only did he study the tracts of Price and Priestley, but gave particular attention to the Letters from a father to his son, on various topics, relative to literature and the conduct of life by John Aikin, M.D. 14 For Aikin had been lecturer in chemistry, from 1770 to 1779, at Warrington, where his father had been divinity tutor. The final inducement in the direction of Manchester sprang from recommendations of the college made by some of Pipe- Wolferstan's friends. It is striking how warm these recom­ mendations were, when it is remembered that the college had existed for less than fifteen years. The diarist made enquiries through his friend Charles Chadwick, a local antiquary. The latter discovered more of the college through a Mr Barrett, a 'sadler copyist' of Salford, who was 'treated with respect by Dr. Perceval, Ferriar, etc.' and spoke highly of both.15 Pipe- Wolferstan learned, moreover, that most of the pupils were Dissenters.16 He was urged to write directly to the college by another friend, the Rev. Henry White, sacrist of Lichfield.17 Nor can Pipe-Wolferstan have failed to learn at least something of the political and intellectual ethos of Manchester at the turn of the century. He was aware of its Literary and Philosophical Society, founded in 1781. He must have known, too, of the high level of radical and reformist sentiment prevailing in Manchester MANCHESTER COLLEGE 85 and of its clashes with the established order. 18 As a staunch supporter himself of parliamentary reform and the abolition of the slave trade, Pipe-Wolferstan was happy to commit his son to the care of so celebrated a radical as George Walker. For Walker had not only played a considerable part in the movement to secure repeal of the test and corporation acts, but had won praise for his speeches and writings in favour of parliamentary reform. 19 In February 1801, therefore, the diarist took the decision to remove his son from Selborne to Manchester. In reply to his enquiry about the college, Pipe-Wolferstan received a letter from Walker which delighted him, since both he and his wife declared it to be 'written by an able man'. 20 There and then he informed the boy of his decision. Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan was 'perfectly acquiescent and even glad, it appears, that it was under 80 miles distant'.21 He was not the first pupil from Staffordshire; indeed there was a fairly wide regional intake. Barely one third of the pupils were from the Manchester area and many hailed from much farther afield. 22 The outcome was a journey by Pipe- Wolferstan and his son to Manchester early in March 1801. They arrived at the college on the morning of the 4th, only find­ ing the premises with some difficulty. Pipe-Wolferstan described the college buildings in Mosley Street as 'not generally known'. 23 Once there, however, he recognised Walker as a familiar and distinguished preacher. He arranged to stay at the college for a week, while his son settled down within its walls. In that time, he saw much of its way of life and of its inmates. The diarist soon developed an easy and informal relationship with Walker which enabled him to inspect the college at will. He learned that the number of pupils studying and residing at the college in the spring of 1801 was only thirteen. He was able to discover something of their manner of living and their lodg­ ing. On the day of his arrival, Pipe-Wolferstan described his meeting with his son's fellow-scholars: Got back to dine (for this once, said Walker, that I might see just how Stanley was to fare) in the public room with the youths a well behaved set we adjourned immediately to Walker's own parlour sat awhile con­ versing . . . learned the pupils breakfast in own rooms (which are no other than those they sleep in and for these it is the rent is to be paid to the Trustees, not Mr. Walker) and are there out of College hours (9 to 3 or later), Walker supplying coals he has deducted £6 annually for their breakfast. 24 During the first few days of his sojourn, Pipe-Wolferstan was able to remark on many features of the college and its environs. He took some note of its scholarly equipment. Although he had to arrange for his son to buy his own 'portable desk',25 he was 86 MANCHESTER COLLEGE obviously interested in the college buildings and not unim­ pressed by their appearance. The library of 5,000 volumes had been inherited from Warrington. Pipe-Wolferstan examined the Old Chatham Library, founded in 1653 and an attraction to all visitors to Manchester. In 1805, for instance, it was evidently admired by the American scientist Benjamin Silliman, who estimated its number of volumes as 15,000.2fi In Pipe-Wolferstan's case, the main item of interest was a number of 'curious East India views there'.27 This led him to a meeting with one of the college's most interesting, though completely unrecorded, pupils, the orientalist scholar William Robinson of Denston Hall, Suffolk. Robinson was the grandson of Robert, Lord Clive and nephew of the earl of Powis, governor of Madras.28 Pipe- Wolferstan described him as 'the only churchman at present in the college'.29 His meetings with Robinson, whom he saw several times during his stay, left the implication that the college could offer facilities for oriental study. Robinson was later admitted as a Fellow-Commoner to St John's College, Cambridge. Apart from the college itself, Pipe-Wolferstan saw something of Manchester and Salford and was intrigued by what he observed. He 'strolled quite round Salford to ford then over New Bridge' and visited Barrett, 'a plain looking saddler, employed with his shop men'.30 On another occasion he noted 'in our walk to College [church] Library, on Rochdale road and through part of town, accosted by several well dressed men and

n Behind this sense of novelty and superficial approval lay much uncertainty as to the financial security of the college. For although Pipe-Wolferstan quickly developed a warm friendship with Walker himself, he feared that 'the funds and existence of the College are quite dubious'. 32 He was unsure how long it could provide an education for his son. Walker admitted that he would be '£100 out of pocket this year'.33 Consequently, Pipe-Wolferstan was at first cautious about the payment of fees: this could have been a bad investment in view of the doubtful prospects of survival. No doubt the closure of Hackney College five years earlier was very much in his mind. The immediate difficulty at Manchester arose from the absence of a permanent denominational fund to give security to the college on the lines of the Congregational Fund, the Presbyterian Fund or the William Coward trust, which had succoured the well known Dissenting academies of the earlier eighteenth century. Man­ chester College had no formal attachment to any of the three MANCHESTER COLLEGE 87 older Nonconformist denominations and was thus ineligible for aid from any of these trust funds. It was the lack of a financial basis of this nature which made it difficult for the college to secure tutors in the 1790s, since the income from fees alone was barely sufficient to meet the costs. 34 There was, therefore, an enforced dependence upon voluntary subscriptions, which had not yet reached a sufficiently high level to inspire confidence. There was, at this time and later, a somewhat undignified controversy between Walker and the trustees over the college finances. This, inevitably, was a source of weakness. Walker felt that he had not been given the fullest information about the finances and that the same thing had happened to him earlier in his career. He confided his anxieties to Pipe-Wolferstan: Heard Walker say today he had already suffered in pocket at Warrington, under same Trustees in a manner! But he had been redeceived, by total concealment of finance condition. 35 In a moment of depression, Walker expressed extreme pes­ simism as to the immediate future of the college. In the presence of Pipe-Wolferstan and of the Rev. John Jones36 he criticised the trustees for lack of urgency in formulating a public appeal for college funds: In at dusk to tea, a young Dissenting minister from Halifax in company ere long found him and Walker in an argument in course of which latter plainly declared his expectation the New College could stand but a short time Trustees had postponed consideration of proposal for addressing Public 3 weeks when so plain a case required not 3 hours (as Walker indignantly repeated). Jones the disputant on the other side might have heard many say 'we're determined not to let it drop' but facts speak plainest he even talked of losing 3 or 4 hundreds by his removal hither in consequence of these Trustees positively undertaking for an emolument of 200 guineas per year so Stanley has but small chance of continuing on now footing. 37 In fact the dispute between Walker and the trustees was a serious and prolonged affair. Walker complained of two griev­ ances. In the first place he alleged that he had been given over- optimistic financial assurances by the trustees on becoming principal and divinity tutor in 1798. The second charge con­ cerned his salary and had grave long-term implications. It was repeated by his son George Walker junior in a Memoir of his father, published in 1809, two years after the death of its subject. The son took up the cudgels on behalf of his father, claimed that Walker's removal from the Nottingham High Pavement chapel to Manchester had involved hardship and sacrifice, and made a specific allegation: Anxiety for the welfare of an institution to the success of which he was taught to believe his personal services were necessary, alone dictated his removal to 88 MANCHESTER COLLEGE Manchester. The salary that was promised him there, as theological pro­ fessor was not more than he was receiving as minister at Nottingham; and even this, from an insufficiency in the funds of the college, he never re­ ceived. 38 This accusation was the first shot in a bitter wrangle over Walker's position at Manchester College. The trustees were perturbed at this public attack on their conduct and at the insinuation that the college's income was insufficient fully to pay the salary of its principal. This could have produced a grave effect on the college's current patrons, especially as the attack was made only six years after Walker's resignation. Determined to reaffirm their confidence, the trustees held a special meeting at Manchester on 14 February 1810. A statement was issued by the treasurer, George , in which a reply to the charges was embodied: The Trustees . . . consider it to be a duty which they owe to the institution and to themselves, after a careful examination of their accounts, of the minutes of their proceedings and of other documents, publicly to declare, that the Rev. George Walker annually received from them, a sum fully equal to the salary originally promised to him, on his acceptance of the office of Theological Professor, and that they faithfully and punctually fulfilled every engagement entered into with him. 39 George Walker junior was by no means satisfied with this statement. He continued the controversy in a letter to the Monthly Repository in which he repeated his original charges. In addition he introduced the testimony of the Rev. William Shepherd, Dissenting minister at Gateacre, near Liverpool, who was himself well acquainted with the college, having had the offer of its chair of classics.40 In a letter to George Walker junior, published in the Monthly Repository, Shepherd made three comments on the affair: 1st. That I am persuaded it was not your intention ... to reflect upon the character of the trustees. 2ndly. That the trustees having effected two distinct contracts with your father, did discharge the obligations by which they were bound, in pursuance of each of those contracts. 3rdly. That, nevertheless, your statement, as qualified to intimate 'that your father did not receive, during the whole term of his professorship, the emolu­ ment which he enjoyed during the early part of his engagement' is CORRECT, as I think his SECOND bargain was FAR LESS ADVANTAGEOUS THAN THE FIRST.41 William Shepherd's evidence inevitably provoked a retort from the trustees, who could not allow his third contention to pass unanswered. They made enquiries of their own from Shepherd, seizing upon his second point that their obligations to Walker had been fulfilled. Here, claimed the trustees, was a clear vindication of their own conduct. They firmly denied any MANCHESTER COLLEGE 89 'insufficiency' in the college funds.42 Furthermore, they published a letter from Shepherd to Ottiswell Wood which reasserted the fulfilment of their commitments to Walker but which also reiterated the third point made in his letter to George Walker junior: I am . . . convinced that Mr. W. received, under the new arrangement, which took place in the year 1800, an income exceeding what he was entitled to under the original agreement; but to this I must take leave to add, that, under the new arrangement, his labour and responsibility were, in my opinion, more than proportionately increased.43 It is unlikely that there was much genuine substance in either of the financial charges made by Walker's son. It is difficult to believe that Walker became principal in 1798 in total ignorance of the college's position. Nor is it likely that the trustees, headed by Thomas Perceval and Samuel Shore, deliberately misled him. The financial difficulties of the college were well known; in 1797 the Rev. of York declined the post of principal for this very reason.44 So, too, did the Rev. of Hackney, who was 'not satisfied with the per­ manence of the institution'.45 In the second place, Walker's son quoted no figures in his allegation that his father's salary had not been paid in full; nor did the trustees. There is a lack of adequate evidence for the allegation and William Shepherd, the 'arbiter' in the dispute, was clear in his communications with both parties that Walker's promised salary was fully paid. It is probable that Walker, ageing and infirm, was faced with high costs and a relatively small income from fees. In this situation it is perhaps not surprising if he felt aggrieved at the lack of energy in the college's public appeal and at the extent of his own labours. At the basis of the dispute lay misunderstanding rather than deceit. Nonetheless, the charges and counter-charges in Walker's own lifetime and more particularly after his death formed a long exchange which was hardly beneficial to college morale. The news of this wrangle and Walker's frankly expressed misgivings did not deter Pipe-Wolferstan from entrusting his son to the college's care. He had at least some confidence in the boy's prospects of a period of uninterrupted study at Man­ chester. He paid Walker £30 5s. in March 1801, on account for board and fees. At the same time, he announced his intention of subscribing five guineas annually to the college.46 No doubt he was encouraged by Walker's bland assertion that this subscrip­ tion would quickly promote others.47 Here indeed Walker was ultimately to be proved correct. The college finances improved steadily if not spectacularly in the first decade of the nineteenth 90 MANCHESTER COLLEGE century. At the time of the move to York in 1803, the Man­ chester property was valued at £4,000 and five years later, Samuel Jones inaugurated the permanent college fund.48 In the year 1810-11, a surplus of £220 2s. 8d. was recorded,49 and the pages of the Monthly Repository from 1812 onwards carry impressive lists of generous subscribers. Pipe-Wolferstan, as a fee-payer and subscriber in a difficult period, undoubtedly helped to begin this process of financial recovery.50

in Having partly satisfied himself as to the immediate financial viability of the college, Pipe-Wolferstan turned to an examina­ tion of its curriculum. What he saw gives some indication of what William Shepherd had meant in writing of Walker's 'labour and responsibility'. That any curriculum could be offered at all at this time is a tribute to Walker's resourcefulness and diligence. Since the departure in 1800 of his two colleagues John Dalton (mathematics and natural philosophy) and William Johns (classics), he had been sole tutor at the college, without even an assistant. He therefore needed to teach a whole range of subjects in addition to his own specialist theological and mathematical work. The first impression was one of arduous endeavour by a single individual, and Walker did not hesitate to say so: I am every day so harassed and exhausted by having for this year imposed upon me the whole duty of three tutors, that I seldom retire in the evening with strength or spirit to encounter the least exertion. My present labours are fitter for a Hercules in his youth than for an old man. Though I have never lived an idle life, all my former employment was as amusement in comparison with my present. I have twice a day the full exercise of my head and voice for two hours at least, as theology tutor. The remainder of the day summons me to the duties of classical and mathematical, which, though easier, as supposing a knowledge more ready to come forward when re­ quired, yet cannot be discharged without thought and reflection, and as an exercise of the voice, greatly fatigue and exhaust me. And what may be called my intervals of relaxation are considerably occupied in preparing my mind for the work of the succeeding day.51 It is necessary, however, to look beyond this understandable complaint. Walker's syllabus was by no means a narrow one. For of the 136 students enrolled at Manchester College in the years 1786-98, only twenty were destined for the Dissenting ministry. The rest planned to make careers in commerce or the professions.52 Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan was, like most of his fellow-pupils, a lay student. The New College thus catered for the requirements of non-theologians and tried to offer a broad, general education in arts and science. In fact the 'official' sources MANCHESTER COLLEGE 91 of the college reveal far more about the five-year course under­ taken by ministerial candidates than of this more general education. Although lay students constituted a majority of the pupils, Walker was in theory permitted to accept them only if this did not interfere with the tuition of the intending clerics. 53 Their presence was necessary, if only from the point of view of fees. To discover something of their curriculum, however, one must rely on external sources such as the Pipe-Wolferstan diary. In what directions, then, did Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan broaden his intellect at Manchester? There can be no doubt of the merits of his tutor. Walker had studied mathematics at and Glasgow universities, was an experienced minister and teacher and had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society as early as 1772. Clearly he was a competent teacher of mathematics, a subject upon which he had made his own contribution to know­ ledge with works on the doctrine of the sphere and on conic sections. 54 Pipe-Wolferstan wrote of him as 'likely to inspire affection as well as command respect',55 and as a 'prime mathematician'.56 The diarist's son confirmed this view after several months as Walker's pupil: As to his [Stanley's] improvement, in his own judgment, he thought Mr. Walker explained Euclid exceedingly well, but [he added], it does not seem to me to want it.57 Pipe-Wolferstan voiced only one possible misgiving about the mathematical presentation and this might have resulted from Walker progressing at an even pace for the benefit of his whole class but too slowly for the mind of a particularly intelligent student. After a conversation with his son in July 1802 Pipe- Wolferstan wrote: I'd seemed to perceive that the fluxions etc is not so great a matter (this by Stanley's own account) and that Euclid is not yet gone through 't'other nothing but Algebra, fluxionary Algebra', or such like expression.58 On the other hand, the laymen did study some of the subjects in the divinity course, since it did not specialise in detailed scriptural analysis until its last two years. It began with Hebrew, Latin, English composition, general history, oratory and criticism. 59 Accordingly, young Pipe-Wolferstan undertook the study of 'evidences of Christianity' or 'natural and revealed religion', a course taken by divinity students in their third year.60 He also studied ethics and literary composition, all under Walker's own supervision.61 There are indications, too, that the college had more to offer than this. The boy was able to study French during his entire period at Manchester. Pipe-Wolferstan paid eight guineas for his son to have tuition from a French 92 MANCHESTER COLLEGE master (unnamed) in the session 1801-2.62 Here is evidence that languages were not neglected at the college and that the claim of the prospectus of 1798, asserting that provision was made for their pursuit, was justified. The question mark held by Mr V. D. Davis63 over the study of languages should now be removed. The absence in the official records of any mention of tuition in French cannot be taken as final proof of its non-existence at the college. Similarly, there are indications that while the college possessed at the best of times a limited academic staff of its own, its scope was nonetheless wide. It benefited from the assistance of visiting lecturers, particularly from . They addressed meetings of the Literary and Philosophical Society and pupils of the college attended such meetings. They included at least two prominent scientists, John Rotheram, professor of natural philosophy at St Andrews, and Thomas Garnett, professor at the Andersonian Institute, Glasgow. The latter lectured on chemistry.61 These men added their considerable expertise to that of Walker and it is unwise to assume that the range of subjects offered was as limited as some writers have suggested and as Walker's sole presence might imply. There was nothing new about scientific teaching at the college. Thomas Davies, T. Nicholls and John Dalton had all undertaken such teaching as college tutors during the late 1780s and 1790s. It was not surprising that after their departure, the teaching of science should have continued, albeit in a rather different form. Indeed it could hardly have been otherwise in Manchester at this time. Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan found academic favour in Walker's eyes. In the regular letters which he wrote to the boy's father, Walker praised his literary efforts at composition65 and declared that 'Stanley deserves a good testimony in manners, morals and literature no proposition of Euclid at all mysterious to him'.66 It would appear that Walker's efforts in preparing lessons made him a little aloof and distant as far as his pupils were concerned. Although there is not the slightest evidence that Stanley was at all unhappy at the college, he spoke six months after his entry of a general lack of sociability: Questioned Stanley . . . the main [thing] to be learned, that the young men seem indisposed to form into breakfast clubs, that he passes no afternoon time with Walker (having only twice had an accidental dish of tea given by Mrs. Walker) and that he does not expect to form any connexion worth it among the society.67 This apparent lack of college or community spirit appeared only after some time. In March 1801, Pipe-Wolferstan was more MANCHESTER COLLEGE 93 concerned with another issue, upon which he sought reassurance from Walker:

Mentioned to Walker subject of woman he had but once had ground to suspect and in that one case remained unable to prove though he con­ sidered town as very full of such (the whole female part of the cotton manufactories) however he was entirely against ever entering on par­ ticulars with young men, previously to a cause of suspicion always did harm.68 With his mind set at rest on this matter, Pipe-Wolferstan cheerfully left his son at the college and left Manchester for his Staffordshire home on 12 March 1801. There was much upon which he could reflect with satisfaction.

IV Two features of Manchester College pleased him consider­ ably. The first was its religious background. Almost certainly, in these early years, lay students took second place to their ministerial counterparts. This was no fault of Walker and it did not seem a drawback to Pipe-Wolferstan. Although Manchester was not solely a theological college, its whole basis and outlook were of a Dissenting nature. Pipe-Wolferstan was consciously supporting a Dissenting enterprise of which he approved; he had done the same in London. To Walker he described himself as 'no formally professed Dissenter, though I did strongly dis­ sent'.69 In considering the denominational commitment of the college, however, one encounters certain problems. It is not easy to attach a denominational label to it, though there are obvious temptations to describe it as 'Unitarian'. Yet the college prospectus advanced the bold claim that 'this seminary is open to young men of every religious denomination and exempt from political distinctions or doctrinal subscriptions'.70 There was a desire not to seem exclusive, and some contemporary and modern Unitarians upheld its non-denominational ethos. Professor G. D. H. Cole was severely taken to task by Dr H. McLachlan for terming it a 'Unitarian College' in his bio­ graphy of Robert Owen.71 In these early years at Manchester there was no formal written attachment to the Unitarian faith. After all, the public denial of the doctrine of the trinity remained a legal offence, an act of blasphemy, until William Smith's act of 1813. On the other hand, the spirit, if not the letter, of the college was sufficiently Unitarian to satisfy a Unitarian sympathiser like Pipe- Wolferstan. There is ample evidence to indicate that its sup­ porters were predominantly Unitarian, as were its tutors. A 94 MANCHESTER COLLEGE correspondent to the Monthly Repository in 1807, only four years after the move from Manchester, declared that 'this is now the only one Seminary in the kingdom, where Unitarian ministers can be educated'.72 Although no religious tests were imposed and (as was claimed) no sectarian dogma inflicted upon the pupils, the fact remains that many of the most prominent Unitarian ministers of the nineteenth century men like , John Relly Beard, and James Edwin Odgers received their training at Manchester College. Speaking in the celebrated Lady Hewley Charity case of 1839, Charles Wellbeloved described the college as 'an establishment chiefly supported by Protestant Dissenters of the Presbyterian denomination, for supplying the churches of that denomination with a succession of ministers, but not for the purpose of instruc­ tion in any peculiar doctrine of any sect'.73 Since English Presbyterianism had become largely Unitarian by this time, the comment is not without significance. George Walker himself was regarded by Mr V. D. Davis as a 'tempered Arian'.74 In addition, Pipe-Wolferstan noted that the college had close con­ nections with neighbouring Unitarian meeting houses. He met Walker's pupil Edward Higginson, whom he considered 'a pleasing young man', soon to become Unitarian minister at Stockport.75 Walker himself claimed that he preached more at Manchester than at any other time in his career on account of 'some small congregations around this town, who well deserve attention, but cannot maintain a minister'.76 One of these small congregations met at the Dob Lane chapel, Failsworth, where Walker was minister from 1801 to 1803. Pipe-Wolferstan attended a service there and his impressions were far from uncritical: 9y, with Walker to his Dob Lane meeting, Stanley too attending . . . disput­ ant Jones with us part of the way in vehement debate with Walker on the first origin of Lord's Prayer, used (it seems) by the Jews! in their liturgies which last are of date altogether unknown. Jones turned back to officiate for Hawkes (Unitarian preacher) and then go to do same at Dob Lane after dinner. We got to latter place in 63 minutes the diminutive congregation (but real hearers Walker afterward said) not ready and Walker, instead of 12, had not done till 12^ nearly his one grand fault making much of his prayer a dissertation, or teaching, like a sermon rather much giving of reasons in direct address to the Supreme, as if explaining to an auditory and then going, even ungrammatically in course of same sentence from 2nd person to 3rd and vice versa a too frequent use of the expression 'in the (or thy) character of e.g. benefice, etc.' nor do I see the use of short hand for sermons, which evidently caused some hesitations, as well as the praying without book no less than 4 psalms." The college had associations with the Mosley Street chapel, where Joseph Priestley conducted a service in 1791. Under the guidance of its pastor, William Hawkes, this chapel used a MANCHESTER COLLEGE , 95 Unitarian liturgy based on that employed by the Octagon chapel of Liverpool in the 1760s. 78 Such influences as this make the denominational question a little easier to solve. Patronised almost exclusively by Unitarians, Manchester College pro­ claimed its belief in 'free Christianity1 , as embodied in its motto, To truth, to liberty, to religion'. This was the traditional slogan of rational Dissent. Like Pipe-Wolferstan himself, the college was Unitarian by sympathy if not by formal profession. More­ over the diarist had to endure a certain amount of hostility and contempt from his friends as a result of his choice of education for his son. Dissenters and their academies were not universally popular at the turn of the century. While visiting his banker friend William Fox in Manchester, Pipe-Wolferstan was made to realise the extent of the unpopularity: Prepared a little to call, soon after 1, on Mr. Fox at bank and stroll some­ what of a round to his house, a few hundred yards out of town where introduced to wife, her parents Wilsons and her sister M'Donald (after getting sight of Lancashire map) 'New College' (said latter lady) 'how ridiculous' and in fact I believe I'd run away with a quite unrecollecting notion that all my Newton Green schoolfellows were Dissenters. 79 Any displeasure which he may have felt as a result of such antipathy was quickly outweighed in Pipe-Wolferstan's mind by his brief participation in Manchester's intellectual affairs. For the college was as deeply involved in the Literary and Philo­ sophical Society as with the local Unitarian chapels. College and Society were inextricably connected; they had been founded in the same decade by the same people. The president of the Society at the time of Pipe-Wolferstan's visit was Thomas Percival, who had been president of the college from 1793 to 1800. His successor in 1804 was George Walker himself. The prominent figures of the Society Barnes, Dalton, Johns, Harrison, Percival, Thomas and all had some connection with the college. They personified a speculative intellectual elite with an emphasis on liberal and scientific inquiry. Pipe-Wolferstan had already met Dalton and Barnes; while in Manchester he renewed his acquaintance with the latter. 80 He, an outsider, could be accepted by the Society and was flattered to be counted among its associates. He was intro­ duced by Walker to one of its meetings and, though not himself a scientist, did not hesitate to set down his thoughts about it: I accompanied Walker with an elder pupil, as visitors, to the Philosophical Society's room where I heard as a drowsy fit permitted, a paper read on detonation, and a good deal of other Chemical discussion and towards 9 proceeded with about 8 more, proeses of the evening Dr. Home, a Dr. Hull, the junior Magnesia Henry (whom Walker believes the first chymist living) to a Club supper at Spencer's Tavern with which 1 found myself treated; and with much mirth and jollity (in which Walker had large share) till after 96 MANCHESTER COLLEGE 12 latter end of jokes etc. got trite. . . . Walker must sit an hour over a pipe or could not sleep must 'unwind the machine gradually' (then 1 o'clock) and he sat toward 2 hours afterward.81 Meetings of the Society were open and popular; entry to them was unrestricted. When the American visitor Benjamin Silliman heard Dalton lecture to the Society in 1805 he was 'surprised to find attractive young women in the audience, as well as a variety of laymen'. 82 The meeting seemed to be 'as well attended as the local theatre'. 83 Of course the nationwide reputation of these scientists was one reason why Pipe-Wolferstan knew of Man­ chester College in the first place. By 'the junior Magnesia Henry', he almost certainly meant William Henry, whose father Thomas Henry was famous for his discovery of a new process of preparing magnesia which earned him the nickname of 'Mag­ nesia Henry'. William Henry was a former pupil of the college who had already become a celebrated scientist in his own right as the author of A general view of the nature and objects of chemistry and of its application to arts and manufactures. 84 He had been secretary of the Literary and Philosophical Society since 1797. Nor did it escape Pipe-Wolferstan's observation that pupils of the college had access to the Society's meetings. In fact he was already acquainted with some members of what had been the Lunar Society of Birmingham, notably Josiah Wedgwood and Dr Erasmus Darwin. There was a significant radical Dissenting element in many of the intellectual circles which were springing up in the provinces during the late eighteenth century; perhaps Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne are the most obvious examples. At all events, Manchester College was only part of a larger Dissenting organisation, and to Pipe-Wolferstan this was a distinct advantage.

In view of Pipe-Wolferstan's evident satisfaction with the college, one is bound to ask why he withdrew his son from it in the summer of 1802, barely eighteen months after the boy's entry. Of course, Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan at the age of seventeen and a half was ready to consider the possibility of going on to university, but his departure from Manchester was rather abrupt. There was certainly no dislike or uncertainty respecting Walker's methods of tuition. The diarist felt some small concern at the report of 'non saying Grace' at college meals. 85 In the session 1801-2, Pipe-Wolferstan received several letters from Walker which assured him that the institution would be con­ tinued and that its financial prospects were improving. 86 It MANCHESTER COLLEGE 97 appears that he believed these assurances, as he had finally accepted them on his visit to Manchester. The college compared favourably with different schools which came to Pipe- Wolferstan's notice from time to time. 87 What, then, were the real reasons for the comparatively early withdrawal? The first reason concerned fees. In July 1801, Pipe-Wolferstan paid Walker a total of £61 11s. 4d. for the board, lodging and tuition of his son in the period March-July of that year. 88 This was the cost of a half-session at the college. A year later he received a bill for £137 13s. 3d. for the academic session 1801-2. This figure is much higher than that of forty guineas per session of ten months in residence quoted by Mr V. D. Davis and Dr McLachlan as the standard fee for Manchester College. 89 It is also significantly higher than the inclusive figure of 60 guineas for the same session at Hackney. 90 The fees at Manchester were higher than those at Warrington, which had totalled less than £30 per session. 91 This was more than Pipe-Wolferstan ex­ pected and more than historians have appreciated. In this case the main items were as follows: 92

Board, tuition, room, library, chapel. £72. 19. 6. French master 8. 8. 0. Shoe cleaner 1. 0. 0. Cash supplied 28. 18. 0. Extras (as styled by him): Tailor, shoes, stockings, wash woman 23. 12. 7. Bread and cream (breakfast) 1. 14. 3. News 1. 1. 0. £137. 13. 4. Pipe-Wolferstan was rather disturbed by this figure. He noted the item 'cash supplied', which he interpreted as 'pocket money' and that of 'extras', regarding both as too high. He felt un­ certain as to the full implications of these items, fearing an over- indulgence on his son's part and a too-ready acquiescence from Walker both at his expense. There is no evidence for surmising that he considered the charges for board and tuition as extor­ tionate or that he did not feel that the college was providing value for money in this direction. Nor was Pipe-Wolferstan a poor man, unable to afford the sort of fees charged by Walker. His anxieties arose from suspicions that he was paying for unnecessary luxuries for his son, and that these constituted an unworthy end. One of them was a gun, which the young man was evidently allowed to keep at the college. 93 Consequently, in the summer of 1802 he began to ponder on a complete change in the manner of living of his son. In the second place, Pipe-Wolferstan's thoughts on this 98 MANCHESTER COLLEGE subject were quickened by the much more serious issue of discipline at Manchester College, the problem which had been so marked in the final years of Warrington Academy. There has been controversy on this point. Robert Halley, writing in 1869, laid the blame for any indiscipline firmly upon Walker, accusing him of bringing to the New College 'the evil genius of Warring- ton a quarrelsome spirit'. 94 This judgment is certainly unjust. Whatever difficulties existed at the time of Walker's tutorship, the period of greatest indiscipline at the college ended in 1798 when it forced the resignation of Thomas Barnes in 'utter des­ pair' of preserving seemly conduct. 95 Thereafter it seems to have improved considerably, and Pipe-Wolferstan made no mention of it during his visit to the college in 1801. This was a problem common to almost all Dissenting academies and Manchester, under Walker's management, never had to face the kind of unruly behaviour encountered at Warrington or Hackney. It is true that Walker became embroiled in disputes with the trustees, but the most vehement exchanges of that altercation only occurred after his death. Of course he faced obstacles. It can hardly have been easy for him as sole tutor to have main­ tained strict order amongst a group of young men. There were lapses and Pipe-Wolferstan became worried about the general behaviour of his son. It appears that, after establishing himself at Manchester College, Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan began to adopt habits which his father sternly disapproved. Walker had to report the boy's habit of 'lying abed in a morning' which was 'truly faulty'. 96 He also reported on the practice of 'entering kitchen, whither (he has said) all resort more or less', 97 and an over-fondness of shooting. 98 To his father's distress, Stanley repeated these practices particularly the 'kitchen entering' whilst at home." The diary suggests that to some extent Pipe- Wolferstan blamed the college for allowing what he regarded as laxity of conduct to develop unchecked. While there was no complaint over academic performance, the diarist feared that only a move away from Manchester would cure his son's indiscipline. Accordingly, he decided upon Stanley's removal from the college in August 1802. The thought of stricter regula­ tion led him to think briefly of Rugby School,100 but this prospect never materialised and in fact the boy's schooldays were over. Pipe-Wolferstan's final decision was to place his son at Cambridge University. In August 1802 he and Stanley visited the University and on 23 October the latter passed a classical entrance examination to Trinity College.101 After returning home to Staffordshire from Manchester at the end of July, MANCHESTER COLLEGE 99 Stanley never saw Walker or the academy again. Pipe-Wolferstan wrote to Walker requesting him to send on his son's books, and this was duly done.102 Here in fact ended the family's connections with Dissenting education. After graduating from Cambridge in 1807, Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan was called to the bar and suc­ ceeded his father to the Statfold estate in 1820. In later life he became a figure of landed establishment respectability a J.P., a deputy lieutenant of his county and a friend of Sir Robert Peel. 103 It is difficult to say whether the college or its religion left any permanent imprint on his mind. There is no evidence that he maintained contact with his former fellow-students. He sent his own son to Eton. Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan nonetheless left the college at a time when its reputation was growing. In the very month of his departure (July 1802) it had come to the attention of a major Liverpool family. William Rathbone IV seriously considered the possibility of placing his son William, a future lord mayor of Liverpool, as a pupil at Manchester College. Rathbone, a former Quaker whose later convictions were of a Unitarian nature, heard favourable reports of the academy from the Rev. John Yates of the Paradise Street chapel, Liverpool. After deep thought, however, he settled ultimately on Thomas Belsham's small school at Hackney as his choice. His decision was based on his own personal acquaintanceship with Belsham and on the advice of his close friend Theophilus Houlbrooke, not on any unflattering account of Manchester.104 A year later, Walker relinquished his tutorship of the college and retired to Waver- tree, although he remained president of the Literary and Philosophical Society until his death in April 1807. 105 On his resignation, there was some debate over the future of the college. Thomas Belsham made a proposal to combine the remaining funds of Hackney and Manchester colleges with those of the former academy at Exeter, to support a new college at Birmingham.106 This plan foundered through a lack of adequate tutors who were willing to settle there. In consequence, Man­ chester College moved to York in 1803 in order to secure the supervision of the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, the minister of the St Saviourgate Chapel in that city, who became Walker's successor. Days of greater prosperity were soon to follow. Despite the removal to York, the college still received most of its financial benefactions from the Manchester area. 107 On the death of Wellbeloved in 1840 the college made a brief return to Manchester, where it established a close link with Cross Street Chapel and where John Edward Taylor, the founder of the Manchester Guardian, was a member of its committee. In 1853 100 MANCHESTER COLLEGE the college began a thirty-six year residence in London before the final move to Oxford in 1889. The years 1798-1803 in the history of the college are unjusti­ fiably obscure. This was by no means a period of inactivity. More was offered to the pupils in the academic sense than has been fully recognised. The college gave them a broad education, produced many distinguished alumni and provided them with introductions to eminent men of science and religion. The question must surely be, not why did the college seem com­ paratively insignificant at this time, but how did it endure and overcome its manifold difficulties? For Manchester College possessed an attribute that was almost unique amongst Dis­ senting academies a talent for survival. It proved far more durable than some of its more spectacular eighteenth-century counterparts. The Pipe-Wolferstan episode suggests at least one significant reason for this success. From the 1790s onwards the college benefited from an involvement in its affairs of liberal Anglicans, especially those with Unitarian sympathies. Two of its early tutors were clerics in the established church who resigned therefrom on theological grounds. They were Charles Sanders, a former fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, who taught classics in 1798-9, and Theophilus Browne, a former vicar of Cherry Hinton, who was in charge of classics and mathematics in 1807-9.108 Anglican seceders had a role in this academy, enhancing its status and enlarging the area of its support. Men like Pipe-Wolferstan were willing to commit their sons to such academies because of the quality of education available, not merely because of fees which were supposedly lower than those of the public schools. The latter was certainly not Pipe-Wolferstan's impression at Manchester. The college was able to appeal to a wider range of people than any narrow sectarian basis would imply. This surely was an important factor in its survival and success.

NOTES 1 H. McLachlan, Warrington Academy (Chetham Society, CVII, 1943) and English education under the lest am (1931), pp. 209-29; William Turner, Historical account of Warrington Academv (Ed. G. A. Carter, Warrington, 1957; reprinted from the Monthly Repository, VIII and IX (1813-14); H. A. Bright, 'A historical sketch of Warrington Academy', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (hereafter THSLC), XI (1858-9), pp. 1-30. See also G. A. Carter, The bicentenary of Warring- ton Academy', ibid. CIX (1957), pp. 193-5. 2 Manchester New College should not be confused with the College of Arts and Science which was founded at Manchester in 1783 and closed five MANCHESTER COLLEGE 101 years later. See A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, 'Science and industry in the late eighteenth century', Economic Historv Review, 2nd ser. XIII (1960-1), pp. 224-7. 3 V. D. Davis, A history of Manchester College from its foundation in Manchester to its establishment in Oxford (1932), pp. 53-70. See also McLachlan, English education under the test acts, pp. 255-62. 4 R. Halley, Lancashire: its puritanism and nonconformity (1869), II, pp. 408-10. 5 The name of only one new pupil is listed for 1798; none are listed for the years 1799-1802 inclusive. See Roll of students entered at the Manchester Academy. . . . With a list of the professors and principal officers (1868). The pages of this work are not numbered. 6 Diary of Samuel Pipe-Wolferstan, William Salt Library, Stafford. The diary covers the year 1776-1820. I wish to record my gratitude to Captain H. F. Pipe-Wolferstan of Stafford Hall for permission to consult the diary and to Mr F. B. Stitt, the Borough Archivist of Stafford, for his co­ operation in making it readily available to me. 7 Monthly Repository, IV (1809), p. 117. 8 Thomas Nicholson to his mother Elizabeth Nicholson, 22 August 1791 (copy), Nicholson family papers in the library of the Unitarian College, Manchester. I am most grateful to the Rev. F. Kenworthy for permission to consult these papers. See also Ernest Axon, Memorials of the Family of Nicholson (privately printed, 1928), p. 93. 9 Mary Nicholson to Elizabeth Nicholson, 7 April 1791 (copy), Nicholson papers. 10 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 5 Dec. 1794. 11 'To Salters Hall and heard great exertions by Dr. Barnes of Manchester pity not employed on a Liturgy (I now and then thought) for he read the chapter about Elijah and Baal admirably.' Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 25 July 1790. 12 Ibid. 29 July 1797. 13 Ibid. 4 March 1801. 14 Ibid. 24 and 26 Jan. 1801. This work by Aikin was published in 1793. 15 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 7 and 11 Feb. 1801. Dr , an Edinburgh medical graduate, became co-secretary of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1790. 16 Ibid. 26 Jan. 1801. 17 Ibid. 9 Feb. 1801. For Henry White, see J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (1954), part II, 1752-1900, VI, p. 436. 18 See Frida Knight, The strange case of (1957), especially chapters VII, VIII and IX. 19 See the article on George Walker in the Dictionary of National Biography; also E. C. Black, The Association: British extraparliamentarv organisation, 1763-1793 (1963), p. 96. See too the letter of John Cartwright to Lord Holland, 15 Dec. 1811, in F. D. Cartwright (ed.), The life and corre­ spondence of Major Cartwright (1826), II, p. 19. 20 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 14 Feb. 1801. 21 Ibid. 22 The entry of one Richard Clarke Hill, of Stallington, Staffs., is recorded for February 1796; there is no mention of the date of his leaving. Of the 136 pupils listed for the years 1786-98 inclusive, the main locations were: Manchester 46, Liverpool 16, rest of Lancashire 14, Kendal 7, Cheshire 5, Newark 5, Yorkshire 3, Scotland 3, Wales 3, 2. There were seven pupils from overseas two from Antigua and one each from Dominica, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Middleburg (Zealand) and Christiana (Norway). Roll of students entered at the Manchester Academy (1868). Because of the gap between 1798 and 1803 this work does not include the name of Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan. 23 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 4 March 1801. The New College was situated on the west side of Mosley Street, between Bond Street and St Peter's Square. See J. Harland (ed.). Collectanea relating to Manchester and its neighbour­ hood (Chetham Society, LXXII, 1867), p. 233. 102 MANCHESTER COLLEGE 24 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 4 March 1801. 25 Ibid. 10 March 1801. 26 John F. Fulton and Elizabeth H. Thomson, Benjamin Sill/man 1779-1864: pathfinder in American science (1947), p. 47. Silliman appears to have been under the impression that the college was still situated at Manchester in 1805. 27 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 6 March 1801. 28 William Robinson was the son of Lieutenant-general John Robinson who had married Rebecca, the eldest daughter of Lord Clive, in 1782. Edward Clive, Earl of Powis, was Governor of Madras from 1798 to 1803. See Burke's Peerage and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, 1752-1900, V, p. 335. 29 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. 30 Ibid. 4 and 8 March 1801. 31 Ibid. 4 March 1801. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Davis, op. dr. p. 71. 35 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. 36 John Jones (1766-1827) managed a small school at Halifax from 1798 and was minister of the Northgate End chapel, Halifax, from 1802-4. Pipe- Wolferstan afterwards referred to him as 'disputant Jones' because of his argument with Walker over college finances. 37 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 7 March 1801. 38 George Walker (junior) in the memoir introducing the edition of his father's works, entitled Essays on various subjects, to which is prefixed a life of the author (2 vols, 1809), 1, pp. cciv-ccv. 39 Monthly Repository, V (May 1810), p. 264. 40 Francis Nicholson and Ernest Axon, 'The manuscripts of William Shepherd at Manchester College Oxford', Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Societv, II, no. 4 (October 1922), p. 119. 41 William Shepherd to George Walker junior, 12 June 1810, Monthly Repository, V (1810), p. 352. Walker also alleged that the trustees had taken advantage of his father's temporary absence in London to pass a 'resolution' which made the terms and conditions of his post less favour­ able. This accusation was indignantly denied by the trustees. Ibid. p. 502n. 42 Statement of the trustees of the Manchester New College in reply to Mr Walker; signed by George William Wood, treasurer, by order of the Manchester annual meeting of trustees, held at the Cross Street Chapel rooms, Friday, 31 August 1810. Ibid. pp. 500-3. 43 Letters of William Shepherd to Mr Ottiswell Wood, 27 January 1810, ibid. p. 503. Ottiswell Wood had been treasurer of the college from 1803 until 1808. 44 Davis, op. cit. p. 66. 45 John Williams, Memoirs of Thomas Belsham (1833), p. 482. See also H. D. Roberts, Hope Street Church and the Allied Nonconformity (1909), p. 229. 46 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. 47 Ibid. 48 Davis, op. cit. pp. 71-2.; Monthlv Repository, IV (1809), p. 117 49 Ibid. VI (1811), p. 559. Charles Wellbeloved was at this time paid the annual salary of £120 as principal. 50 The college succeeded in raising the sum of £3,140 in 1803 for the purchase of the York property, Davis, op. cit. p. 72. 51 Letter of George Walker to an unnamed friend, printed in his Essays on various subjects, I, pp. ccv-ccvi. 52 Roll of students entered at the Manchester Academy (1868) and Davis, op. cit. p. 62. 53 Davis, op. cit. p. 70. 54 Walker's books were entitled On the doctrine of the sphere, in six books. . . . To which is added an appendix (1775) and 'A treatise on conic sections in five books'. Only one of these five books was published. Its title was On MANCHESTER COLLEGE 103 the general properties of the conic sections: or the properties which are common to them all (1794). 55 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 9 March 1801. 56 Ibid. 1 Aug. 1802. ' ' ;" . .» -' 57 Ibid. 30 Aug. 1801. 58 Ibid. 6 July 1802. 59 See the letter of 'Neocomensis' to the Monthly Repository, II (1807), pp. 117-21, which describes the five year Divinity course and is a major source for Davis, op. cir. ch. V. 60 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 5 March 1801. 61 Ibid. 5 March 1801 and 1 July 1802. 62 Ibid. 19 July 1802. 63 Davis, op. cit. p. 69. Similar doubts respecting the teaching of foreign languages at Manchester College are expressed by J. W. Ashley Smith in The birth of modern education. The contribution of the Dissenting academies (1954), p. 170. 64 See A. Clow, 'The industrial background to John Dalton', D. S. L. Card- well (ed.), John Dalton and the progress of science ( 1968), p. 131. Several of these lecturers, including the chemist Dr , had been visiting Manchester since the foundation of the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1781 five years before the college came into existence. See Thomas Nicholson to his brother Matthew Nicholson, 27 June 1781 (copy), Nicholson papers, Unitarian College, Manchester. 65 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 1 July 1802. 66 Ibid. 22 May 1801. 67 Ibid. 30 Aug. 1801. 68 Ibid. 11 March 1801. 69 Ibid. 12 March 1801. 70 Davis, op. cit. pp. 62-3. 71 See H. McLachlan's paper entitled 'John Dalton and Manchester 1793- 1844' in his Essays and addresses (1950), p. 62. 72 'C.Monthlv C.' Repository, II (1807), p. 116. The correspondent signed himself 73 Shore v. Wilson in The English reports, The House of Lords, VIII, p. 456. The issue in the Lady Hewley Charity case concerned Unitarian church property. In 1704 Lady Hewley bequeathed a fund to succour impecunious Dissenting ministers. By 1830 this fund was controlled by Unitarian trustees. Trinitarian Dissenters, chiefly Independents, began a series of lawsuits, claiming that the fund was in the wrong hands and that Lady Hewley had not intended Unitarians to benefit from it. After litigation costing some £30,000, the Trinitarians won their case and their victory was confirmed by the House of Lords in 1842. This precedent threatened the security of all Unitarian church property vested before 1813, the year in which the public profession of Unitarian views was legalised. To safeguard this property, the Peel government passed the Dissenters Chapels Act in 1844 and the issue died down. But during the Lady Hewley Charity case, Unitarians were naturally anxious to deny that they imposed any sectarian doctrine, and Wellbeloved's remarks must be seen in that context. See B. L. Manning, The Protestant Dissenting Deputies (1952), pp. 84-93, and Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, Part I (2nd ed. 1970), pp. 393-5. 74 Davis, op. cit. p. 68 n. 2. 75 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. Edward Higginson (1781-1832) entered the college as a divinity student in 1795. There is a brief account of his life in the D.N.B. entry for his son of the same name. 76 George Walker, Essays on various subjects, I, p. ccvi. 77 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. Two former classical tutors at the college Lewis Loyd and William Stevenson had been ministers at Dob Lane chapel. Pupils of the college occasionally preached there. See the account of Dob Lane chapel in B. Nightingale, Lancashire nonconformity, V (1893), pp. 38-50. The author describes the chapel as Unitarian. The Rev. William Hawkes was minister at the Mosley Street Unitarian chapel from 1789 to 1820. See Sermons bv the late Rev. William Hawkes. With a 104 MANCHESTER COLLEGE sketch of his character, by the Rev. J. Carrie, ed. W. Shepherd, 2 vols (1823). 78 See Anne Nicholson to Nicholas Clayton, 7 Oct. 1787 (copy) and Elizabeth Nicholson to Nicholas Clayton, May 1789 (copy), Nicholson papers, Unitarian College, Manchester. The Nicholson family had been wor­ shippers at the Octagon chapel, Liverpool, which closed in 1776. 79 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 5 March 1801. 80 He wrote that Barnes was 'laughed at here for vanity and overwheening behaviour to other Dissenting ministers', Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 8 March 1801. 81 Ihid. 6 March 1801. John Hull was physician to the Lying-in Hospital at Manchester, had practised medicine in Manchester since 1794 and was a future president of the Society. See the D.N.B. and R. Angus Smith, A centenary of science in Manchester (1883), pp. 124, 196. 82 Fulton and Thomson, Benjamin Sitliman, p. 47. 83 Ibid. 84 Published in 1799. There are entries for both Thomas and William Henry in the D.N.B. See also E. L. Scott, 'Dalton and William Henry', Cardwell, John Dalton and the progress of scienct pp. 220-39. 85 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 30 June 1802. 86 Ibid. 22 May and 27 July 1801, 28 March 1802. 87 Ibid. 30 Aug. and 11 Sept. 1801. 88 Ibid. 5 July 1801. The diarist had already paid Walker the sum of £30 5s. on account in March; in July he paid the remaining £31 6s. 4d. 89 McLachlan, English education under the test acts, p. 256; Davis, op. cit. p. 64. Their figure is based on a letter written by John Dalton to his cousin Elihu Robinson in February 1794. 90 McLachlan, English education under the test acts, p. 247. 91 McLachlan, Warrington Academy, pp. 38 and 61. 92 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, July 1802. 93 Ibid. 14 Feb. 1802. 94 R. Halley, Lancashire: Its puritanism and nonconformity, II, p. 409. 95 McLachlan, English education under the test acts, p. 260. 96 Pipe-Wolferstan diary, 27 July 1801. 97 Ibid. 1 Aug. 1802. 98 Ibid. 14 Feb. 1802. 99 Ibid. 1 July 1802. 100 Ibid. 1 July 1801. 101 Ibid. 22 Aug. and 23 Oct. 1802. 102 Ibid. 6 Sept. 1802. 103 J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (1752-1900), VI, p. 550, gives Stanley Pipe-Wolferstan's school simply as 'Manchester' without further clari­ fication. The admissions to Trinity College Cambridge, ed. W. W. Rouse Ball and J. A. Venn, IV (1801-50), p. 12, gives the school as 'Manchester (Mr. Walker)'. 104 There is an account of William Rathbone's thoughts on this matter in his letter of 4 July 1802 to his wife Hannah Mary Rathbone. He described the decision as 'an arduous consideration'. Rathbone Family Papers, III I 233, Harold Cohen Library, University of Liverpool. I am very grateful to the Librarian of Liverpool University Library for permission to consult and quote from the Rathbone papers. 105 As late as 1805, Walker contributed three separate essays on literature, history and philosophy to the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 2nd ser. I. 106 John Williams, Memoirs of Thomas Belsham, pp. 522-4. 107 See Monthly Repository, II (1807), p. 120. 108 Both the D.N.B. and Mr V. D. Davis (op. cit. p. 76 n. 3) make it clear that Browne left the Church of England because of his Unitarian convictions.