Information about Homerton College, Cambridge

Colleges of the University of Cambridge Homerton College
College name	Homerton College
Motto	Respice Finem (Latin: Look to the end)
Named after	Homerton town
Established	1976
Previously named	Homerton Academy (1768-1852) Training Institution of the Congregational Board of Education (1852-1894)
Location	Hills Road
Admittance	Men and women
Principal	Dr Kate Pretty
Undergraduates	550
Graduates	550
Sister college	Mansfield College, Oxford
Official website
Boat Club website

Homerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. It has a long and complex history dating back to the 17th century. The actual origins of the college have been variously listed as 1695, 1768, 1895, 1976 and 2001.

Homerton College became established as an "Approved Society" of the University of Cambridge in 1976. Until 2001 it only admitted Education Studies students. Since that time it has broadened its intake, although it remains unusual among the Cambridge colleges in its emphasis on Education.

It has more students than any other Cambridge college, partly due to the large number of PGCE students in the college. This is more than Trinity, which is traditionally thought of as the largest.

Homerton has a wide range of thriving student clubs and societies, including a boat club, music society, Geographical Society (HUGS - Homerton Undergraduate Geographical Society) and a resident drama society, HATS (Homerton Amateur Theatrical Society)[1].

History

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 wholly Anglican education offered by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Around 35 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.

Since 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, Hackney, close to London, in which they sought to base all their teaching. Building on the work the existing Independent College, Homerton, the new college became known as the Homerton Academy. To give an example of how intellectually important this academy was, although it only ever had between 12 and 20 students at any time, one of its tutors was described by Boswell as Johnson’s “literary anvil”; another was offered a Doctorate of Divinity by Yale College.

In 1824 the building itself was added to and partially rebuilt. Not long afterwards, following the liberalisation of access to English universities, (University College London becoming the first English university to admit students without a need for conformity to the Established Church), the work of the English Dissenting Academies could become mainstream and, in 1840, Homerton Academy in the village of Hackney became a college of the new University of London.

In 1850 Homerton Academy was refounded by the Congregational Board of Education to concentrate on the study of education itself. It did so by transferring its theological courses to New College London whose Congregationalist Principal was the Rev, John Harris DD; and by extending and rebuilding the old mansion house and 1820s buildings of the academy at a cost of £10,00. The college reopened as the 'Training Institution of the Congregational Board of Education' in April 1852, with Samuel Morley its Treasurer. Shortly afterwards, it began admitting women students, although John Horobin (then Principal) ultimately called an end to mixed education in 1896, shortly after the move to Cambridge, and thereafter the college remained all-women for 80 years.

Towards the end of the century, the growth of industry had turned the village of Homerton into a manufacturing centre, lowering the quality of life of the students and leading seven deaths between 1878 and 1885 from TB, smallpox and typhoid. Also, increasing student numbers required more space.

In 1881 former students of Homerton College who were members of Glyn Cricket Club, formed a football section to help keep their players fit during the winter months. The football section continued to grow over the ensuing years and is now Leyton Orient Football Club.

In 1894 the Congregational Board of Education were able to purchase the estate of Cavendish College, Cambridge (named after the then-Chancellor of the university) which was now available following its inception as a failed attempt at allowing poorer students to sit Cambridge tripos exams without the expense of joining a true Cambridge college (Cavendish College was briefly recognised as a ‘Public Hostel’ of the university in 1882 but a lack of money had brought the venture to an end).

So Cavendish College, its estates and all its furniture were bought by the Congregational Board for £10,000; and their students and staff moved from the premises of Homerton College in Hackney, into the vacant college buildings at Cambridge. Initially taking the name of ‘Homerton New College at Cavendish College’, it shortly became just ‘Homerton College, Cambridge’. John Horobin became the first Principal, and his portrait still hangs in their Great Hall.

The first woman to head the College was Mary Miller Allen, who was responsible for Homerton’s national reputation as a trainer of women teachers. Her successor in 1935 was Miss Alice Skillicorn, a former HMI, who took the College through World War Two, during which time it was bombed.

Dame Beryl Paston-Brown was Principal during the 1960s - at a time when Homerton’s numbers doubled after the introduction of three-year training courses in 1960.

In December 1976, under the headship of Principal Alison Shrubsole, Homerton was accepted as an Approved Society of the University of Cambridge following a 3-1 vote of the Regent House in favour of admitting Homerton. Since the days of Horobin this had been under consideration, and the possibility of introducing a Cambridge Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree was even given as one of the reasons for the original move into Cambridge. It was only after the shake-up and governmental criticisms of teacher training in the early 1970s that the University agreed to admit Homerton, as now all of its students were doing four-year honours courses. This was the same year that the college became mixed again.

In late 2000 the Regent House approved a proposal[2] to 'converge' Homerton with the rest of the University. Convergence involved the transfer of most of the college's teaching and research activity to the new University Faculty of Education and the diversification of the college into a wide range of Tripos subjects. In September 2001 Homerton admitted its first non-education Tripos students. At the same time the old B.Ed. degree was retired in favour of a three-year B.A. in Education, followed by a 1-year Post Graduate Certificate of Education. At the time of convergence it was envisaged that Homerton would move from the status of Approved Society to that of Approved Foundation or full College - for the time being however, Homerton remains an Approved Society.

Developments since 2001 suggest the further separation of Homerton and education. By 2006 Education Tripos students comprised around 40% of the body of undergraduates at Homerton, with 60% of undergraduates following other Tripos courses. Other developments include:

• the appointment of many new fellows in subjects other than education
• the construction of a nearby Faculty of Education building
• the transfer of education tripos books and other materials from the college library into the Faculty of Education library
• the establishment of a graduate research community at the college

In conclusion, the history of Homerton is long and unusual among Cambridge Colleges, not just for the novelty of its story but because traditionally, and in the nature of the original dissenting academies, the college has always been seen as the students and fellowship themselves rather than the buildings. The Congregational Board and the King’s Head Society are not simply forbears of the modern Homerton College, but are intricately a part of its history.

See also

References

• Simms, T.H. (1979). Homerton College 1695–1978 Published by the Trustees of Homerton College
• Warner, Dr Peter. Lecture on the history of Homerton College (Michaelmas term 2004)
• Homerton College Website

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