Independent College, Homerton, later Homerton Academy, was a dissenting academy just outside London, England, in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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In 1695 the Congregational Fund was set up in London to provide for the education of Calvinist ministers, and to provide an alternative to the education offered by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which was barred by law to English Dissenters. Around 35 of these so-called dissenting academies arose during the 18th century, offering education without the requirement of conformity to the Church of England. They promoted a more modern curriculum of science, philosophy and modern history than the ancient universities who took a more traditionalist approach to learning. One of these was the Independent College, Homerton, which appointed Dr John Conder as President in 1754.
From 1730, the King's Head Society (a group of laymen named after the pub at which they met) had been working to promote Calvinism. They had sponsored young scholars to attend dissenting academies, where nonconformists could learn the necessary "grammarian," or classical education, which was a pre-requisite for the four-year "academical" course of the Congregational Board.
In 1768 the King's Head Society bought a mansion in Homerton, in the parish of Hackney, close to London, in which they sought to base all their teaching. Building on the work of the existing Independent College, Homerton, the new college became known as the Homerton Academy.
The Academy boasted several members of distinction: although it only ever had between 12 and 20 students at any time, one of its tutors, Henry Mayo, was described by James Boswell as Samuel Johnson’s "literary anvil"; another was offered a Doctorate of Divinity by Yale College. John Pye Smith (1774—1851), one of the best known Nonconformist theologians of his day, taught there. [1]
In 1824 the building itself was added to and partially rebuilt. Not long afterwards, following the liberalisation of access to English universities, the work of the dissenting academies could become mainstream. University College London became the first English university to admit students without a need for conformity to the Established Church), and, in 1840, Homerton Academy in the village of Hackney became a college of the new University of London.