Methodist College Belfast - History - Foundation

Foundation

Methodist College Belfast was founded in 1868 by the Methodist Church in Ireland. The idea of establishing a Methodist Grammar school had been around since 1843 and in 1844 the Conference of the Methodist Church in Ireland approved the proposal to establish such a school in Belfast. Shortly after, a decision was taken to relocate the site of the school to Dublin. Funds for this school were raised in 1845 and it was opened the same year first as the Wesleyan Connexional School and later Wesley College, named after Charles Wesley, founder of Methodism. The school is still operating to this day.

It was only in 1855 that the idea was raised of founding a school specifically for the education of sons of ministers like the Methodist Church in England had at Kingswood School in Bath. Funds were again raised with significant amounts coming from America and England. The original site for the school was to be in Portadown but the location was changed, first of all to Dublin. Land was acquired in Dublin but proceedings stalled. Several prominent Belfast Methodists began a campaign to have the school built in Belfast. The Methodist Conference allotted the remaining £2000 left from the purchase of the Dublin site to Belfast so long as they could raise £8000 extra with the added proviso that no building could take place until they had raised £10,000. A last attempt was made 1863 for the building to take place in Portadown but this failed. The necessary money had been raised by 1864 to satisfy the Conference’s stipulations but it was held that £10,000 would not be sufficient. Further fundraising missions were made to the United States and England in 1866. These were led by Robinson Scott, the Rev Robert Wallace and William McArthur. Wallace would die on this mission in Cincinnati from Cholera. However an additional £10,000 was raised. Several subsequent missions took place to fund building work.

The present site of the college, near Queen’s University Belfast on the Malone Road, was purchased by James Carlisle and offered to the committee on the same terms. The site covered 15 acres all of which have been developed by the college to the present day. In addition to the school it was proposed that a strip on the North side be let for building and the rest used by the college. This would become College Gardens which is still owned by the college.

The school originally had a dual foundation as a school and a theological college and the school was designed with this in mind. The architects firm Joseph Fogerty & Son of Dublin won with their bid to design the school. The foundation stone for the Main Building was laid in 1865, and in 1868 the College was ceremonially opened.

Read more about this topic:  Methodist College Belfast, History

Famous quotes containing the word foundation:

    A full belly to the labourer was, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace.
    William Cobbett (1762–1835)

    A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.
    Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)

    Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation.... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings.
    Octavio Paz (b. 1914)