George Collison - Founding of The Hackney Academy (Hackney College)

Founding of The Hackney Academy (Hackney College)

The origin of the Hackney Academy began in 1802 as a philanthropic non-denominational venture promoted by the Anglican Rev. John Eyre of Homerton, Secretary of the London Missionary Society and the Independent Rev. George Collison, with their associates, the Rev. Matthew Wilks of the Tabernacle, Moorfields (a founder of the LMS), and the Rev. Rowland Hill of Surrey Chapel. They secured a bequest of £10,000 from wealthy Homerton resident, Charles Townsend, enabling the college to open, following some rebuilding works, in the former house of the Rev. John Eyre in Well Street, Hackney village, in 1803. Its students lived here in premises converted from old stable buildings until the freehold was bought in 1843 and more extensive building work could be undertaken.

On taking up the Presidency of the Hackney Academy in 1803, George Collison continued some of his pastoral duties at Walthamstow, but was succeeded in similar work for a small congregation he had recently gathered in Hackney at the Well Street Chapel in Hackney. Here, his successor, the Rev. Mr Hughes, inherited a rapidly growing interest locally in Independent worship, and his congregation grew so rapidly that little time passed before a larger Independent chapel (Trinity Chapel) had to be built in nearby Devonshire Road. George Collison found a philanthropic use for his original chapel; it became the Well Street Chapel Free School, established in 1807 with generous endowments that covered the cost of educating sixty poor children and orphans who made usse of the chapel itself for religious aspects of their attendance and had their school rooms and facilities at the back.

Meanwhile, at the Hackney Academy, the Rev. George Collison's main project, the training of ministers evolved as only part of the academy's function. It also raised funds to build dozens of new chapels, and worked closely with the non-denominational London Missionary Society of which Collison was a Director, to promote missionary work. On his death in 1847 the presidency of Hackney Academy passed to the Rev. John Watson (1804-1859) of Union Chapel, Islington, who died when struck down by a vehicle on London Bridge.

After 1871 the academy formally used the name Hackney College, and in 1887 as it had outgrown its Well Street premises in Hackney, it took on new premises at Finchley Road, Hampstead where it was associetd with Peter Taylor Forsyth. Besides the expanding space needed for education, by the end of the nineteenth century the college's trustees were able to report considerable success in their mission to build new chapels - listing over 50 chapels they had built wholly or partly. Moreover, the academy was able to contribute to the cost of the upkeep of a good number of these.

In 1900 it merged with New College London and became part of the University of London, though the Hampstead building frequently retained use of the name 'Hackney College'. From 1924 onwards it was known as Hackney and New College.