Brown University - History - Founding

Founding

Brown owes its founding to the support of learning among a Baptist Church association but in 1762, the Baptist Minister Morgan Edwards was at first ridiculed for suggesting the founding of a college. In his Materials for a History of the Baptists in Rhode Island, Edwards wrote:"The first mover for it in 1762 was laughed at as a projector of a thing impracticable. Nay, many of the Baptists themselves discouraged the design (prophesying evil to the churches in case it should take place) from an unhappy prejudice against learning." Nonetheless, Edwards joined several others as an original fellow or trustee for the chartering of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the former name for Brown University), the first Baptist college in the original thirteen colonies, and now one of the Ivy League universities.

In 1763, The Reverend James Manning, a Baptist minister, and an alumnus of the College of New Jersey (predecessor to today's Princeton University), was sent to Rhode Island by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches in order to found the college. At the same time, local Congregationalists, led by the theologist Ezra Stiles, were working toward a similar end. The inaugural board meeting of the Corporation of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations was held in the Old Colony House in Newport, Rhode Island. Former colonial governors of Rhode Island Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward, as well as the Reverend Isaac Backus and the Reverend Samuel Stillman, were among those who played an instrumental role in Brown's foundation and later became American revolutionaries. On 3 March 1764, a charter was filed to create the College in Warren, Rhode Island, reflecting the work of both Stiles and Manning. The college gained its charter by grant of King George III.

The charter had more than sixty signatories, including the brothers John, Nicholas and Moses of the Brown family, who would later inspire the College's modern name following a gift bestowed by Nicholas Brown, Jr. The college's mission, the charter stated, was to prepare students "for discharging the Offices of Life with usefulness & reputation" by providing instruction "in the Vernacular and Learned Languages, and in the liberal Arts and Sciences." The charter required that the makeup of the board of 36 trustees include, 22 Baptists, five Friends, four Congregationalists, and five Church of England members, and by 12 Fellows, of whom eight, including the President, should be Baptists "and the rest indifferently of any or all denominations." It specified that "into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted any religious tests, but on the contrary, all the members hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of conscience." One of the Baptist founders, John Gano, had also been the founding minister of the First Baptist Church in the City of New York. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition remarks that "At the time it was framed the charter was considered extraordinarily liberal" and that "the government has always been largely non-sectarian in spirit." In commemoration of this history, each spring faculty and the graduating class proceed down the hill, in academic dress, to the grounds of the First Baptist Meeting House (erected in 1774, "for the publick Worship of Almighty GOD and also for holding Commencement in") for the conferral of the bachelors degree.

James Manning was sworn in as the College's first president in 1765. His tenure lasted until 1791. During his presidency, the College moved to its present location on College Hill in the East Side of Providence in 1770 and construction of the first building, the College Edifice, began. This building was renamed University Hall in 1823.

The Brown family — Nicholas Sr., John, Joseph, and Moses,— were instrumental in the move to Providence, funding and organizing much of the construction of the new buildings on the former Rev. Chad Brown farm. The family's connection with the college was strong: Joseph Brown became a professor of Physics at the University, and John Brown served as treasurer from 1775 to 1796. In 1804, a year after John Brown's death, the University was renamed Brown University in honor of John's nephew, Nicholas Brown, Jr., who was a member of the class of 1786 and in 1804 contributed $5,000 toward an endowed professorship. In 1904, the John Carter Brown Library was opened as a research center on Americas based on the libraries of John Carter Brown and his son John Nicholas Brown. The Brown family was involved in various business ventures in Rhode Island, and made a small part of its wealth in businesses related to the slave trade. The family itself was divided on the issue. John Brown had unapologetically defended slavery, while Moses Brown and Nicholas Brown Jr. were fervent abolitionists. In recognition of this complex history, under President Ruth Simmons, the University established the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice in 2003.

Brown began to admit women when it established a Women's College in Brown University in 1891, which was later named Pembroke College in Brown University. "The College" (the undergraduate school) merged with Pembroke College in 1971 and became co-educational.

The language of the Brown University charter has long been interpreted by the university as discouraging the founding of a business school or law school. Brown continues to be one of only two Ivy League colleges with neither a business school nor a law school (the other being Princeton). Nevertheless, since recently Brown does offer an Executive MBA program in conjunction with one of the leading Business Schools in Europe; IE Business School in Madrid. In this partnership, Brown provides the traditional coursework while IE provides most of the business related subjects.