The Northern Baptist Education Society, founded in Yorkshire in 1804, is where our story began, with leading Theologians like John Fawcett paving the way for a Northern ministerial training institution. In 1859 the Society moved from a weaving shed to a new building, Rawdon College, located near Bradford. A few years later, in 1866, the Manchester Baptist College was established on strict communion principles. It operated out of Chamber Hall in Bury until 1873, when the Brighton Grove site was established. The reason for moving closer to Central Manchester was to be near to the new Manchester University (then Owen’s College). The college would later become a founding member of Manchester University’s Theological Faculty. The college trained successful ministers from the moment it opened, and welcomed its first female student in 1953. After several earlier attempts, Rawdon and Manchester Baptist College amalgamated following a proposal by Rawdon in 1961 was achieved after a proposal by Rawdon in 1961. The buildings you see onsite today were erected during the process of this amalgamation, as the two colleges united to form Northern Baptist College in 1964.

Northern College in Manchester was first known as the Lancashire Independent College, established by the Lancashire Congregational Union in 1859 to provide training and education for nonconformists who were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge. The college was affiliated with various other nonconformist institutions in its lifetime, which can be explored in more detail on the Manchester University Special Collections page. Another such college is Overdale, which was a part of Selly Oak in Birmingham, and is the namesake for one of our conference rooms.

The creation of the United Reformed Church in 1972 meant that an opportunity arose to provide theological and ministerial training in a radical new context, committed to ecumenical working. In 1985, the Whalley Range site was sold, and the College moved to our Brighton Grove site to operate ecumenically with other training colleges. It was with this move that Luther King House was established, with all affiliated colleges recognising the “opportunity to rediscover the role of such colleges as the theological conscience and voice of the churches” (as declared during this announcement). Today, Northern College, as a part of Luther King, is a Resource Centre for Learning under the URC and welcomes students from all backgrounds, including Congregational, Unitarian, and Moravian.

Hartley Victoria was a Methodist college formed as a union of the Hartley Primitive Methodist (1881) and Victoria Park (est. 1871) Colleges in Manchester. The amalgamation occurred in 1934 following the Methodist Union. By the early 20th century, under the direction of the Principal, Dr Arthur Samuel Peake, 105 students were being trained at the College, and Luther King continues to have a Methodist presence. The original college buildings are now home to the Kassim Darwish Muslim Grammar School for Boys, while Hartley Victoria joined the Brighton Grove site in 1973. In 2015, Hartley Victoria College closed, but the Methodist legacy lives on in our library collections, educational offer, and student community at Luther King.

The Unitarians have had a rich presence in Manchester since the opening of Cross Street Chapel in 1694. For some time, the college operated in York under the direction of Charles Wellbeloved, after 17 years in Manchester under the tutelage of Dr. Thomas Barnes. In 1839, James Martineau presented to the Committee a scheme for removal to Manchester. This was supported by Unitarian figures such as William Gaskell, husband of Elizabeth Gaskell, who would often hold teaching sessions in his own home at Plymouth Grove, a short walk away from Luther King. The period of the Manchester College being based in Manchester was a short one, with the college moving to London in 1853 and then Oxford in the late 19th century (now known as Harris Manchester College).

The Unitarian College, Manchester, was then founded in May 1854 as the Unitarian Home Missionary Board to train men for ministry among the poor. In 1889 it became the Unitarian Home Missionary College, and assumed the name of Unitarian College in 1925. The College moved to a new home, ‘Summerville’, in Victoria Park in 1905, where it resided until 1985, when it relocated to our site on Brighton Grove. Our library holds a rich Unitarian collection, including the personal library of James Martineau, donated to us by his daughters in 1900 upon his death.