Chelsea Collegewas a polemical college founded in London in 1609. This establishment was intended to centralize controversial writing againstCatholicism,and was the idea ofMatthew Sutcliffe,Dean of Exeter,who was the firstProvost.After his death in 1629 it declined as an institution.[1]
Foundation
editJames I of Englandwas one of its foremost patrons, and supported it by grants and benefactions; he himself laid the first stone of the new edifice on 8 May 1609; gave timber for the building out of Windsor forest; and in the original charter of incorporation, bearing date 8 May 1610, ordered that it should be called "King James's College at Chelsey."[1]
Building was begun on a piece of ground called Thame Shot (or Thames Shot), a site of sixacres,[2]crown lands fromWestminster Abbeyobtained at theDissolution of the Monasteries,and leased by Sutcliffe fromCharles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham.[3]The College was to have consisted of two quadrangles, with apiazzaalong the four sides of the smaller court. Only one side of the first quadrangle was ever completed; and this range of buildings cost, according toThomas Fuller,above £3,000.[1]
Fellows and members
editThe charter limited the number of members to a provost and nineteen fellows, of whom seventeen were to be in holy orders. The king himself nominated the members. Sutcliffe was the first provost, andJohn Overall,Thomas Morton,Richard Field,Robert Abbot,Miles Smith,John Howson,Martin Fotherby,John Spenser,John Prideaux,[4]andJohn Boys,were among the original fellows, while the lay historiansWilliam Camden(a personal friend of Sutcliffe[5]) andJohn Hayward[6]were appointed to record and publish to posterity "all memorable passages in church or commonwealth."[1]
Other original fellows includedBenjamin Carier,[7]John Layfield,Richard Brett,William Covell,Peter Lilly,Francis Burley,John White andWilliam Hellier.[3]Later wereEdward Gee,[8]andNathanael Carpenter.[9]
History of the College
editThe scheme ultimately proved to be a failure. In consequence of a letter addressed by the king to ArchbishopGeorge Abbot,collections in aid of the institution were made in all the dioceses of England, but the amount raised was small, and hardly covered fees due to the collectors. After Sutcliffe's death the college sank into insignificance, and Charles I in 1636 refused to revive the moribund institution.[10]William Laudthought of it as "controversy college", and he disliked public disputation as divisive.[11]An engraving representing the building project, which was only very partially carried through, is in the second volume ofFrancis Grose'sMilitary Antiquities(1788).[1][12]
Daniel Featleywas provost in 1630 as Sutcliffe's successor.[13]William Slater was provost from 1645. The fourth and last provost was Samuel Wilkinson. The College was dissolved in theInterregnum,by 1655.[1][3][14]
Nothing of the buildings now remains. For a while, though, there was activity and interest in the premises.Francis Kynastonwanted to move hisroyal academythere, at a point when there were only two resident fellows.[3]From 1641 there was a project to set up apansophistinstitution in England, on the visit ofComenius,and the Chelsea College building was mentioned in discussions of a Parliament-backed Universal College; this came to nothing. In the 1650s the College became a prison; and in theSecond Anglo-Dutch Warof the mid-1660s it housed prisoners of war.[3]
John Duryin 1651 advocated that Parliament should renew the charter, and create a centre in the College forintelligencerwork; his close colleagueSamuel Hartlibalso agitated that the revenue should be better spent. The grounds were granted to theRoyal Society,and a print of the original design is prefixed toThe Glory of Chelsey Colledge revived,published in 1662 by John Darley (rector ofNorthullin Cornwall) who, in a dedication to Charles II, urged that monarch to grant a fixed revenue to the college.[15][16]This royal grant was apparently reversed (or repurchased for a sum never handed over).[17]
After proposals including an observatory, supported byJohn Flamsteedbut vetoed byChristopher Wrenin favour ofGreenwich,[18]the site was devoted toChelsea Hospitallater in the reign of Charles II, with the old name still used in the following years.[19]The king had wanted to keep open the chance of using the site also as a barracks for astanding army.The situation was resolved only whenStephen Fox,the major benefactor to the Hospital, put up £1,300 of his own money for its purchase, and made a deal with the Royal Society through the good offices ofJohn Evelyn.[20]
Notes
edit- ^abcdef.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^"Chelsea College".John Strypre's survey of London and Westminster. Archived fromthe originalon 10 November 2017.Retrieved26 July2021.
- ^abcde"The Royal Hospital: King James's Theological College | British History Online".british-history.ac.uk.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^His DNB article.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^Hugh Trevor-Roper,Archbishop Laud(1962 edition), p. 67.
- ^Kevin Sharpe,The Personal Rule of Charles I(1992), pp.287–8.
- ^"Military antiquities: respecting a history of the English army..., Volume 2".Printed for T. Egerton... & G. Kearsley, 1801 – via Internet Archive.
- ^.Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^"The Rectory | British History Online".british-history.ac.uk.
- ^"Read the eBook The wonderful village; a further record of some famous folk and places by Chelsea reach by Reginald Blunt online for free (page 9 of 19)".ebooksread.
- ^Margery Purver,The Royal Society: Concept and Creation(1967), pp. 214-5.
- ^"17th-Century Tradsemen's Tokens (Chelsea in Middlesex)".britishfarthings.
- ^"Greenwich | British History Online".british-history.ac.uk.
- ^"Victorian London - Publications - Social Investigation/Journalism - The Million-Peopled City, by John Garwood, 1853 - Chapter 2 - Greenwich and Chelsea Pensioners".victorianlondon.org.
- ^Gillian Darley,John Evelyn: Living for Ingenuity(2006), p. 261.