Unitarian College, Manchester


Unitarian College Manchester is one of two Unitarian seminaries in England. It is based at Luther King House in the Brighton Grove area of Manchester, and its degrees are validated by the University of Manchester.
It has been preparing students for ministry and lay leadership positions in the Unitarian and Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Churches since 1854, when it was established by the Unitarian Home Mission Board. The College has a tradition of providing occasional overseas scholarships for students from kindred churches, particularly from Hungary and Romania. It is now part of the Partnership for Theological Education.
It is to be distinguished from the only other Unitarian college in the country, which confusingly shares a similar name. What is now Harris Manchester College, Oxford started off as a dissenting academy based on the famous one in Warrington. "The Manchester Academy" or "Manchester College", named after its birthplace in 1786, kept the name when it moved to York, and back to Manchester. It then moved to the capital as "Manchester New College, London", in University Hall, Gordon Square 1853–1889. Its final move was to Oxford, where it has remained, becoming in 1996 a full constituent college of Oxford University, and adding "Harris" after a donor. It was the move of the original academy to London in 1854 which occasioned the need for a separate establishment in Manchester.

Principals