The Congregational Board of Education was set up in 1843 "to promote popular education, partaking of a religious character and under no circumstances receiving aid from public money administered by Government" (extract from original rules).

The earlier Congregational Fund Board

An earlier organisation - the Independent or Congregational Fund Board - was established in 1695 to assist poor ministers and to give young men who had already received a classical education, the theological and other training preparatory to the Christian ministry. Until 1826, when what is now

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

opened, English non-conformists were excluded from

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...

, as only practising

Anglicans Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...

were admitted to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. A system of

dissenting academies The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, those who Nonconformist (Protestantism), did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a sign ...

developed, including

Homerton Academy Independent College, later Homerton Academy, was a dissenting academy in Homerton just outside London, England, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Background In 1695 the Congregational Fund was set up in London to provide for the education of C ...

and

Hoxton Academy Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It li ...

in London.

The 1843 organisation

With liberalisation, the Congregationalists adapted their focus, and the Board reorganised the former Homerton Academy as

New College, London New College London (1850–1980) (sometimes known as New College, St John's Wood, or New College, Hampstead) was founded as a Congregationalist college in 1850. Predecessor institutions New College London came into being in 1850 by the amalgamat ...

and what became

Homerton College, Cambridge Homerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Its first premises were acquired in Homerton, London in 1768, by an informal gathering of Protestant dissenters with origins in the seventeenth century. In 1894, the co ...

Morley Memorial Primary School Morley may refer to: Places England * Morley, Norfolk, a civil parish * Morley, Derbyshire, a civil parish * Morley, Cheshire, a village * Morley, County Durham, a village * Morley, West Yorkshire, a suburban town of Leeds and civil parish * ...

in Cambridge was also set up as a training institution for students at Homerton College. In 1868, the poet

Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lite ...

- who was a school inspector by profession - was commissioned to report on the eligibility of the Homerton schools for public funding.

References

{{authority control Congregationalism History of education in England Dissenting academies