THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES
CHESHUNT COLLEGE, the oldest of the Cambridge theological colleges, owed its foundation
largely to the expulsion from St. Edmund Hall,
Oxford, early in 1768, of six Anglican students
because of their alleged Methodist leanings. (fn. 44) Lady
Huntingdon, desiring to provide for the theological training of young ministers of the Methodist
persuasion, acquired a house at Trevecca (Brecon),
and opened there a training college for clergy on
24 August 1768. Its first president was an Anglican
cleric, and its students have always been free to
enter the ministry of any denomination. But, as the
circumstances of its origin would suggest, it gave
a religious training that was not only strongly
evangelical but also a substitute for, rather than
a supplement to, that of the universities. The
students, who received their education free, remained there for three years.
On the death of the countess, who had resided in
the College, the trustees decided to transfer it to a
site nearer London. In 1792 a house at Cheshunt
(Herts.) (fn. 45) was acquired, and there the College remained for the next 114 years, becoming in course
of time especially associated with the Congregationalists. In 1906 the increased provision for theological teaching in the reconstituted University of
London decided the trustees to leave Cheshunt and
migrate to Cambridge. (fn. 46)
In its new buildings, erected in 1915 from the
designs of Morley Horder on a site between Bateman Street and Brookside, the College preserves,
amongst other links with its beginnings, the portraits of the foundress and her family, of the first
trustees, and of the famous Francke, forerunner of
the charity school movement, a 1536 edition of Tyndale's New Testament, once the property of Lady
Huntingdon, a volume of Charles Wesley's hymns in
his own writing, and other manuscripts and letters
associated with the early days of Methodism.
Of the five theological colleges of Cambridge
Cheshunt is the only one not associated by its constitution with any one denomination. Students are
not required to subscribe to Lady Huntingdon's
fifteen articles in which she defined the Calvinistic
tenets of her Connexion for the trustees. Besides
serving as a hostel for theological students who
belong to some college of the University and for
post-graduate students training for the ministry,
Cheshunt also houses extramural students sent to
Cambridge by their industrial firms for short courses
of study. In addition both men and women students
are accepted who, without aiming at the ministry,
wish to qualify as specialist teachers of Scripture in
schools, and read for a degree or diploma in theology,
usually followed by a University course in education.
Only graduates are accepted for ministerial training,
and their course, which takes two or three years,
includes practical work. There is a common table
for all, but married and women students live out.
There is accommodation for some 20 inmates.
Cheshunt has sent a long succession of its students
to the mission field, and amongst those who have laid
down their lives there should be named James
Chalmers of New Guinea (d. 1901) and Alfred Sadd,
killed by the Japanese in the Gilbert Islands in 1943.
Westminster. (fn. 47)
In 1844 the newly constituted
Presbyterian Church in England founded a college
for the training of would-be Presbyterian ministers.
Its resources were scanty. It had no house of its own
until 1864 (in Queen Square, London), and the
complement of four professors required for a theological course and for a duly constituted senatus was
not reached until 1878. Two proposals to transfer to
a university town had been rejected when in 1892
the offer of a Cambridge site made such a move
practicable, and after three years' debate it was
accepted.
Once again the benefactors were women. The twin
sisters Margaret Gibson (1843–1926) and Agnes
Lewis (1843–1920) were natives of Ayrshire, widows
of scholars, and themselves learned orientalists, who
had in 1892 discovered the Sinai palimpsest of the
Old Testament in the monastery of St. Catharine's,
Sinai, to which their knowledge of modern Greek
had gained them admission. (fn. 48) Besides the site, they
gave the College £6,000. This lead was followed up
by the congregations, and when the building, designed by H. T. Hare, was opened in October 1899,
Westminster College stood free of debt. It is placed
south-west of the old Roman Camp, where the slope
comes down from the Castle Hill towards the Backs.
The College is for the training of ministers of
the Presbyterian Church and is governed by the
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in England, but
members of other churches are received, and the
College lectures are attended by students of the
other theological colleges and of the University. The
senate, made up of the four professors, is responsible
directly to the assembly for the teaching given in the
College. All are members of the University faculty
of theology and some have held University appointments. (fn. 49) Since its establishment in Cambridge,
the College has trained some 350 candidates for the
Presbyterian ministry in England and some 150
students of other churches. The student body
numbers about 40. The library, which contains some
20,000 theological works, possesses valuable collections of 17th-century pamphlets and of oriental
manuscripts presented by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs.
Gibson. The chapel, added in 1921, has some fine
stained glass by Douglas Strachan.
Ridley Hall.
It was no coincidence that the
same year, 1881, saw the beginnings of the two
Anglican theological colleges, Ridley Hall and Westcott House. By the middle of the 19th century the
shortage of adequate theological training for Anglican clergy was apparent to many church leaders, (fn. 50)
all the more as there was good provision for the
training of Free Church ministers. The initial impulse
to link such training with the older universities (fn. 51)
came from the Evangelicals, particularly strong at
Cambridge, where the traditions of Charles Simeon's
ministry at Holy Trinity were kept alive by various
activities. (fn. 52) One such was 'the most famous of all
Sunday Schools' opened in 1827 in the old Quaker
meeting house to meet the needs of the rapidly
growing parish of St. Andrew, Barnwell. The Jesus
Lane sunday school, (fn. 53) transferred in 1833 to King
Street and in 1867 to Paradise Street, Barnwell, was
originally staffed by undergraduate members of
Simeon's congregation. In 1877 it had 646 scholars
and 112 teachers. It might almost be called the
nursery of Ridley Hall, one of whose founders, E. H.
Carr (1810–80), (fn. 54) had taught there in the thirties,
whilst another, Charles Perry (1807–91), (fn. 55) had been
the generous friend of both school and parish. These
two were mainly responsible for the meeting at
C.M.S. House in London in March 1876 at which
it was proposed that two theological halls should be
founded, one at Oxford and one at Cambridge. (fn. 56) By
the scheme adopted in April 1877 a joint trust was
set up, with two distinct councils for Wycliffe Hall,
Oxford, and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. (fn. 57) The names
selected for the two halls reflected the views
dominating the founders' minds, who saw in ritualism and rationalism the main dangers against which
theological reinforcement was needed. The same
fear led Bishop Perry to insist on the insertion in
the trust deed of certain doctrinal safeguards; as a
result Professors Lightfoot and Westcott, hitherto
warm supporters, decided to take independent
action. (fn. 58)
The purpose of Ridley Hall, as defined by the
deed of trust, was to furnish supplementary theological instruction in conformity with the doctrines
of the Protestant Reformed Church to graduate
candidates for ordination and to afford them economical residence. (fn. 59) It was 'to provide the missing
link between the universities and the ministry', (fn. 60)
and the great majority of Ridleians have been Cambridge graduates, though in the course of 70 years
a number of graduates of other universities have
studied there.
On 31 January 1881 the College opened on a site
at Newnham, (fn. 61) with its full complement of eight students, under the headship of the Revd. Handley
Moule (1841–1920). Moule was also lecturer at Holy
Trinity, and his Sunday evening sermons there
carried on the Simeon tradition. (fn. 62) He has been
justly called 'the creator of Ridley Hall'. (fn. 63) Five
hundred and fourteen students had come under the
influence of his vigorous and saintly personality
when he resigned in 1899, and about one-fifth of
them had gone to the mission field. (fn. 64) The buildings,
enlarged in 1882 and 1891, could then accommodate
40 students. Under Moule's successor, T. W.
Drury (1847–1926), (fn. 65) more emphasis was laid on
the scholastic training of the ordinands, (fn. 66) and 'all
shades of ecclesiastical opinion' came to be found
among them. (fn. 67) The tradition of Evangelical and
practical pastoral work has been effectively maintained, as well as the association with Holy Trinity
Church, further strengthened by the foundation of
the Cambridge Pastorate in 1897. (fn. 68) The supply of
volunteers for the mission field has continued, and
at least seven old Ridleians are or have been overseas bishops. (fn. 69) Further additions were made to the
buildings in 1912 and 1914, and the College today
normally holds 52 students.
Westcott House.
The Clergy Training
School, known since 1902 as Westcott House, owes
its inception to B. F. Westcott (1825–1901). An
active promoter of better theological training for
Anglican ordinands, he, with Lightfoot, had supported the Ridley scheme until, in their words, it
adopted a basis 'narrower than that of the National
Church'. (fn. 70) With the co-operation of a number of
college deans, notably Frederick Wallis of Caius
College, the Clergy Training School was opened in
January 1881. It was from the first more closely connected with the University than Ridley, since the
Regius Professor of Divinity (Westcott) was the first
President, and its council, as constituted in 1887, included all the Divinity Professors being clergymen
of the Church of England. Its beginnings were
modest and tentative. The lectures and meetings
were held in hired rooms at 20 King's Parade, a sidechapel in King's served for common worship, there
was no common hall, and the students lived in their
own colleges or in rooms. There was no principal or
resident tutor, and most of the lecturers gave their
services gratis. By the end of the second year, however, there were fourteen students, and larger rooms
were taken, in St. Mary's Street in 1884 and at
6 St. Mary's Passage in 1889. F. H. Chase was
appointed tutor in 1884, to become the first Principal
(1887–1901) when the School was given a formal
constitution. By 1893 the School had 28 present and
225 past students. (fn. 71)
In May 1899 it moved into permanent buildings
in Jesus Lane, which included rooms for the Principal and six students, a common room, a lecture room,
and a temporary chapel. Thus the members of
the College were still largely non-resident. (fn. 72) In 1903
32 Jesus Lane was acquired as a house for the
Principal.
In 1916 Westcott House, like other theological
colleges, had to close down. In 1919 it reopened with
B. K. Cunningham (1871–1944) as Principal. Cunningham (fn. 73) had been head of the Farnham Theological Hostel from 1899 to 1914, and of the Army
Chaplains' School at St. Omer from 1917 to 1919.
His unique combination of simplicity, humour,
sympathy, and saintliness, together with his ideal of
'unity in diversity' and his belief in 'a minimum of
discipline imposed from without with a maximum
of discipline worked from within', (fn. 74) has given
Westcott House a marked character of its own, and
has attracted men from many other universities.
The House reopened in the spring of 1919 with the
Principal, vice-principal, and 8 men; by the beginning of the second term there were 20, and the
number soon rose to 40. A hall had been built in
1912, a chapel and library in 1924, and additional
rooms in 1914 and 1929. In 1944 Cunningham retired, and W. Greer became Principal, to be succeeded in 1947 by K. Carey.
The average number of students is today about 45.
As a rule only graduates and those recommended
by a bishop's selection board are accepted and the
normal course lasts for two years or eight terms.
The greater part of the teaching is given by the
Principal, vice-principal, and chaplain-tutor, who
direct the life and studies of the members, but the
University professors and lecturers also share in the
work. As a rule, members do not read for the Theological Tripos. A larger proportion of the students
than at Ridley come from universities other than
Cambridge. (fn. 75)
Wesley House was founded in 1921 by Michael
Gutteridge, a Methodist layman who had built up
a great business in Naples and was well known in
Italy as a generous supporter of good causes. For
four years its work was carried on at 2 Brookside, in
close co-operation with Cheshunt College, until in
1925 the present College buildings were erected on
a site purchased from Jesus College, on land once
belonging to St. Radegund's on the opposite side
of Jesus Lane to Westcott House. The Principal's
house was completed in 1929, and the Chapel, which
contains paintings by Harold Speed, in 1930.
The College is administered by a special board of
trustees, and is worked under the direction of the
Methodist Conference, acting through a board of
governors. There is room for some 30 students.
As a rule only graduates are admitted, though, in
exceptional circumstances, the Methodist Conference may send an undergraduate here for training.
All are expected to read for the Theological Tripos.
Of the two chairs, that in Systematics and Pastoral
Theology was held by the first Principal, Dr. H.
Maldwyn Hughes, throughout his headship from
1921 to 1937, whilst that in New Testament Language and Literature was held by the Revd. R.
Newton Flew from 1927 to 1937, when he succeeded
Dr. Hughes both as Principal and professor.
With a history far shorter than that of the four
other theological colleges, Wesley has already made
notable contributions both to the administration of
the Methodist Church and to the teaching of theology in other universities and theological colleges. (fn. 76)