The King's Head Society was an 18th-century organisation funding
dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of educatio ...
in England.
The King's Head Society was a group of laymen named after the pub behind the
Royal Exchange at which they met. From 1730 they worked to promote
Calvinism
Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyteri ...
, by sponsoring young male scholars to attend dissenting academies. There
nonconformists could learn the necessary "grammarian," or classical education, which was a pre-requisite for the four-year "academical" course of the Congregational Board.
A
classical education
Classical education refers to a long-standing tradition of pedagogy that traces its roots back to ancient Greece and Rome, where the foundations of Western intellectual and cultural life were laid. At its core, classical education is centered on t ...
included the demanding and lengthy training period required for learning to read Greek and Latin texts in their original form.
A
secret society
A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...
and discussion club at
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 col ...
(a descendent institution of one set up by the King's Head Society) is named after the Society.
The King's Head Society Academies (1731–1769) included:
* Samuel Parsons's Academy, Clerkenwell Green (1731–35);
*
Abraham Taylor's Academy, Deptford (1735–40);
* Stepney Academy (1740–44);
(tutors: John Hubbard (1740-1743);
(1743-1744);
John Walker (1742-1744)
Hubbard and Marryat were strict Calvinists;
* Plaisterer's Hall Academy (1744–54)
(Tutors: Walker, Marryatt,
John Conder
John Conder D.D. (3 June 1714 – 30 May 1781) was an Independent minister at Cambridge who later became President of the Independent College, Homerton in the parish of Hackney (parish), Hackney near London. John Conder was the theological tuto ...
&
Thomas Gibbons);
* Mile End Academy (1754–69) (Tutors: Conder, Gibbons & Walker);
* The academy set up after the Society purchased of an estate at Homerton in 1768, with the students in residence by the end of 1769. The name of the institution changed over time; it became known as Homerton Academy and
Independent College, Homerton
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 ...
.
Notes
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Dissenting academies
1730 establishments in Great Britain