University College London, 1828-1878 : a lecture introductory to the fifty-first session / by Henry Morley.
- Henry Morley
- Date:
- [1878]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: University College London, 1828-1878 : a lecture introductory to the fifty-first session / by Henry Morley. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![In April 1825, prompted probably by Campbell's letter to ' The Times,' other action was taken upon a resolve to work at the foundation o£ a College in which the highest education should be offered to all comers, without imposition of religious tests. Its beginners were a few jn'ivate men at Hackney, several of them members of a congregation of Dissenters there which had for its minister the Kev. Francis A. Cox. These gentlemen looked chiefly to the fact that Dissenters were shut out from the English Universities. They met in April at the King's Head Tavern in the Poidtry and formed themselves into a Provisional Committee with power to add to their number. Their first business Avas to write letters to the public men who M'ere most likely to assist tliem. Their second meeting was held on the 26th of April 1825, and known friends of their cause ■n ere invited to it by the following cir- cular from Mr. James M. Buckland, their Honorary Secretary :— I am requested to inform you that at the late Meeting held at the King's Head Tavern in the Poultry j'ou were appointed one of the Provisional Committee for the establishment of a College, and beg to solicit your attendance at the same place on Tuesday next, April 26th, at 11 o'clock in the morning, to receive the Eeport of the Deputation appointed to confer with Messrs, Brougham &c, and for the transaction of other business relative thereto. The public men who were appealed to replied with deeds as well as words, and to Henry Brougham was due much of the prompt success in bringing men together who could help effec- tually. They joined the Provisional Committee, inspired its counsels, enlarged its original design into the plan of a free Uni- versity, and quickly realized a great part of their scheme. A letter of Thomas Campbell's,* written four days later (April 30, 1825), tells how this came about. I have had, he said to a friend, a double-quick time of employment since I saw you. In addition to the business of the Magazine [he n as then edit- ing the ' New Monthly'], 1 have had that of the Uuiversity in a formidable shape. Brougham, who must haA^e popularity among Dissenters, propounded the matter to them. The Dele- gates of almost all the dissenting bodies in London came to a con- ference at his summons. At the first meeting it was decided that there should be Theological Chairs, partly Church of England and partly Presbyterian. I had instructed ail friends of the University to resist any attempt to maJie us a theological body ; but Brougham, Hume, and John Smith came away from the first Meeting, saying ' We think Avith you, that the introduction of Divinity Avill be mischievo js; but we must yield to the Dissen- ters AA^th Irving at their head. We must have a Theological College.' I immediately Avaited on the Church-o£-England men, who had already subscribed to the number of a hundred, and](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22278163_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
