Hackney College
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Hackney College is a remarkably imprecise term. It is generally used, not wholly incorrectly, to refer to Hackney Community College, an institute of adult and further education in the London Borough of Hackney. This was, indeed, originally named Hackney College when it was formed in 1974 by the amalgamation of Hackney and Stoke Newington College of Further Education with those sites of Poplar Technical College that had been established in Hackney. Initially run by ILEA and, following that, by Hackney Council, when it was renamed, it is now an independent institution. For a few years it was known as The Community College Shoreditch but has now reverted to the name Hackney Community College (dating from the process known as "incorporation" in 1993 when it was formed from the merger of Hackney College, Hackney 6th Form Centre and Hackney Adult Education Institute)
As noted, Hackney Community College is not a single building but occupies a number of sites. Its main campus is in Falkirk Street, Hoxton. This opened in 1996 and at that time was the largest capital Further Education building project in the UK. HCC's SPACe (Sport and Performing Arts Centre) was funded by Sport England as a Centre of Excellence in Cricket and Basketball. SPACe is currently (June 2007) home to London United Basketball and Hackney Community College Basketball Academy.
[edit] Previous institutions known as 'Hackney College'
However, 'Hackney College' has also been widely used (by Pevsner and others) to refer specifically to Brooke House, until September 2002 one of the Community College's sites. This has now become BSix Sixth Form College, at least removing one source of ambiguity.
Quite apart from this confusion, the modern version of the term should also be distinguished from two previous Hackney Colleges:
- One name for the college set up by Calvinist Dissenters in Homerton in 1786, also known in various accounts as the New College, Homerton Academy, or Homerton College (it is under the last name that it survives today as a college of the University of Cambridge). In its Homerton years it attracted some notable students including William Hazlitt. This college moved to Cambridge in 1894.
- Hackney Academy or Hackney Theological Seminary, a non-conformist institution co-founded by George Collison, confusingly named itself Hackney College after 1871, and it thereafter became known by this name even though it moved to Finchley Road, Hampstead in 1887 and became part of the New College London in 1900. Its principal at about this time, was Peter Taylor Forsyth. In 1924 the institution dropped the name Hackney College and was retitled as 'Hackney and New College', University of London.
