A brief history of the Associateship of King s College London

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1 1 A brief history of the Associateship of King s College London Christine Kenyon Jones May 2009 The Associateship of King s College London (AKC), instituted by the College Council in 1834, can claim (with the degrees of Oxford and Cambridge universities) to be one of the three oldest degree-equivalent qualifications to be established in England. King s had in fact able been to achieve its own royal charter in 1829 specifically because its founders declared they had no intention of erecting in the metropolis an university with the power of conferring degrees. 1 The Provisional Committee saw the purpose of the new College as being to prepare its students for the learned Professions, for the Civil Service at Home and in the Colonies, for different Mercantile situations, and for any of the higher departments of life (ie for entry into the two older universities and thence for ordination). 2 These modest aims removed the element of competition with Oxbridge, and therefore allowed King s (unlike the future University College London) to avoid opposition from these quarters. King s came into operation in 1831 with three descriptions of students in its Senior Department. These were King s College Classical Students, admitted to a regular and prescribed course of general study ; King s College medical students, and Occasional students, attending individual courses of lectures or taking private tuition at the College. 3 After the College had been in operation for three sessions, however, in November 1834, the Council decided that it needed to move towards a more degree-like system, which involved distinguishing the regular students from the occasionals, prescribing a more specific course of education for them, and allowing only students who had successfully completed this three-year course to receive such distinction or privilege as the College is enabled to bestow. 4 These students day began with required attendance at prayers in the Chapel, at ten o clock precisely. Their course of public instruction lasted about five hours a day; and they were warned that a record of attendance of each student is regularly kept. 5 The first year course consisted of Religious Instruction; Greek and Latin Classics; Pure and Mixed Mathematics; History, and English Literature, plus modern languages. In the second year students who were distinguished by their proficiency could add other subjects, and third-year students were expected to continue parts of the regular course and also to attend a full course of lectures in at least three other branches of knowledge. 6 The religious instruction was, of course, in conformity with the principles of the Established Church. 7 After not less than three years study, those students who shall have obtained Testimonials from the Principal and professors, stating that they have passed with credit through the course prescribed, and that their general conduct, and their attendance on the services of the College Chapel, have been satisfactory, will be entitled to a Certificate, setting forth these

2 2 particulars, and distinguishing them by the title of ASSOCIATES OF KING S COLLEGE (AKC). Those who obtain this certificate will have their names enrolled, as Associates, in the College Books; will be privileged to attend, without further expense, the lectures of all the professors under whom they have studied; and will have free access to the Library and the Museums. 8 The College s 1929 historian, FJC Hearnshaw, characterised this move as King s taking the first step toward educational independence, establishing a course of study which should be an end in itself, and not a mere means to an entrance scholarship at Oxford or Cambridge. 9 The first person to receive the new AKC certificate (on 15 May 1835) was a student named Stapleton Cotton, who had also been the first to be admitted to the new King s College four years earlier. 10 In 1835 the College reported that more than 100 students were following the course for the new qualification. 11 Having established its own qualification in 1834, the College Council looked askance on the degree that was instituted by the new University of London a couple of years later, especially because this qualification was also open to students from the Godless institution in Gower Street (and, as time went on, to those from many other non- Anglican institutions as well). Although King s medical students started to take the London University degree, the College continued to encourage its non-medical students to take the AKC rather than the London BA and BSc, and the King s qualification did obtain considerable status during the nineteenth century in this respect, although it could never match the rigour of the University qualification. As Hearnshaw commented, King s tried to make its AKC, of which religious knowledge was the basis, the equivalent of the London BA; but the world refused to accept the valuation. 12 In 1846 the College instituted a Theological Department to prepare young men for Anglican ordination, and in 1848 the Council made it possible for the AKC to be obtained on the results of the final examinations in this department. In 1847 the College added a Department of Applied Sciences, whose students could obtain the AKC on similar conditions to those for students in the Department of General Literature and Science. For the Medical students, however, the conditions were slightly different. As well as general good conduct and regular attendance at the Chapel service, the divinity lectures, the classes of the College and at the Hospital, they had to have studied for four years and obtained either a scholarship or two prizes or to have held the office of Physician s Assistant, or of House Surgeon, or Dresser and Clinical Clerk, served with distinction and one prize, or having obtained a hospital appointment in London, the provinces or other professional distinction. 13 By 1851 the privileges of being an AKC included the liberty of dining at the high table in the College Hall, and later Associates were also allowed to take part in the election of two members of the Council of King s and to receive a copy of the College s annual report. 14

3 3 In 1858 the College took the pioneering step of making the AKC available to students from its evening classes (instituted in 1855) and, because the evening students were more able and assiduous than the day students, the general standard of the AKC diploma had to be raised all round. In 1882 it became possible for the Council to elect as Associates people who were not members of the College but such former students as are duly recommended according to the existing rules or according to such rules as they from time to time make. 15 From 1892 the AKC diploma could be obtained by King s day training students (ie those training to be teachers) who, having completed their two years educational course in the mornings, were prepared to return to College for a third year as evening students in order to take divinity and other necessary subjects; and in 1899 the AKC was opened to students in the Ladies (soon to be Women s ) Department of the College at Kensington. Although women students joined the men at the Strand in 1915, as late as 1937 women and men non-theological students were still attending separate courses of AKC lectures, given by different lecturers. 16 The decade from 1898 saw great changes for King s. In 1898 the University of London was reconstituted as a teaching as well as examining university, and King s became a constituent member of it in In 1903 religious tests were abolished by the College Council and compulsory attendance at the College chapel and at divinity lectures ceased except for members of the Theological Faculty. The new situation was reflected in the AKC regulations by a clause which specified that a non-theological candidate Must, unless exempted on account of conscientious exemptions or for some special reason, have been regular in his attendance at the Divinity Lectures. 17 In 1905 the weekly divinity lecture, which until then had been held in the lunch interval, was fixed to take place between 10am and 11am on Wednesdays, and it was arranged that no other lecture in any faculty should be held during that period. The major change for the College came, however, in the King s College London (Transfer) Act of 1908, when the main part of the College was incorporated as part of the University of London as University of London, King s College, to be governed by a Delegacy of the University, while the Theological Department retained an independent existence governed by the Council of King s, and was known as King s College London. This Act, which came into force in 1910, changed the AKC from being a general King s College diploma into one that, for non-theological students, was only achievable if they had also attained a London University degree, and which required them to have attended specified courses and passed specified examinations in theology at King s, as well as achieving their degree in another subject. For King s theological students, the AKC remained available as a completely different qualification: one that was recognised as a preparation for ordination in the Church of England. The 1908 Act also made statutory the arrangements for the weekly divinity lecture which constituted the course for the Non-theological AKC. 18 Responsibility for both the new types of AKC, along with the provision of the daily Chapel service and the weekly divinity lecture, was entrusted to the Theological Department under the Dean of King s College. The Theological AKC went through various changes in the 20th century. From 1910 and for most of the century it ran alongside the course for the University of London

4 4 Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree but had a more practical content: including, besides some of the subjects required for the degree, lectures on the history, doctrine, liturgy and pastoral work of the English Church. 19 Many students studied for both the BD and the AKC. On its own, the normal AKC course was equivalent to that for a BA pass degree in theology and took three years of full-time study, but those who were already graduates or in holy orders could take it after a year s study through either day or evening classes. A sense of collegiality among King s Theological Associates was fostered by distinctive academic dress, specially authorised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, by an annual reunion on Whit-Tuesday and by The AKC newsletter: The Official Gazette of the Theological Society, which included details of the current appointments of Associates. 20 After an early period when it was not clear whether all bishops would accept the AKC as a qualification for ordination, it became an officially recognised equivalent of the Church of England General Ordination Examination in the 1930s. 21 Because it was a preparation for ordination, women were excluded from the Theological AKC, although as early as 1920 one woman, at least, was applying to be allowed to take it. 22 The following year the Dean wrote to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who partly funded the AKC course, to ask whether their grant would continue if women were admitted. Some members of the College Council had suggested, he said, that this could happen if the number of women admitted to the course... should be confined to a proportion not exceeding one quarter of the whole number of students ; if the fees paid by women for the AKC course should be on a higher scale than those paid by men, or if the Associateship when gained by women was not represented as a professional training for holy orders. 23 It was not until the 1950s that the anomaly was addressed which made women theological students eligible to take neither the Theological AKC (because they could not be ordinands) nor the Non-theological AKC (because they were theological students). 24 In 1948 a fourth year of study for King s Anglican ordinands was instituted at St Boniface s College, Warminster, and in 1969 this was transferred to St Augustine s Canterbury, but came to and end in The last year in which the Theological AKC could be completed as a qualification for Anglican ordination seems to have been 1978, and after that the Theological AKC was changed to became a qualification similar to the Non-theological AKC, offering all students in what had become the College s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, whether ordinands or not, a chance to follow a different additional course designed to give them some knowledge of disciplines other than their own. 25 Lord Harries, who as Reverend Richard Harries was Dean of King s from 1981 to 1987, reports that, by the time he arrived at King s, The old AKC, namely a full-time theological qualification for clergy of the Church of England who did not want to do the BD had been abolished. What remained was the theological lectures for nontheological students and the lectures on non-theological subjects for theological students. 26 The King s College London Charter of 1980, which reunited King s College London (the Theological Department ) and University of London, King s College, did not, for this reason, make much change to the AKC, since the 1980 statutes continued to permit the College to offer an Associateship in which there was not, by now, any great difference in status between the Theological and the Non-theological type of AKC.

5 5 In the 1980s the courses for the Non-theological AKC included those on the philosophy of religion, ethics and biblical studies, while studies for the Theological AKC included the history of theatre, music and the nature of classical civilization. 27 King s first charter, in 1829, had stated that the College s purpose was to provide instruction in the doctrines and duties of Christianity, as the same are inculcated by the United Church of England and Ireland... side by side with instructions in various branches of literature and science. 28 Even at this stage, however, the regulations framed by the Provisional Committee in 1828 required only the regular students to attend chapel daily and at least one lecture in divinity weekly, while the occasional students were not obliged to accede to these or any other religious requirements. The 1908 Charter encouraged voluntary, rather than obligatory, attendance at the daily service in Chapel and at the weekly divinity lecture, and in , the first year of the new arrangements, about 150 students registered for the AKC, and 104 took the examinations. The majority of these especially in the faculties of arts and science did well, and so good a general level of work was attained as to show evidence, not only of ability, but of real interest in the subject, the College s Theological Committee reported, concluding that The result of the transition to the voluntary system shows, as far as it is possible to judge, that neither the attendance nor the interest has suffered by the change. 29 This voluntary AKC system is, essentially, the same one as is currently operated in the College, under the provisions of the College s 1980 Charter, although at some point before 1975 the hour of the AKC lecture was changed to Monday mornings, and the safeguarding of this period, as one when no other lectures or classes could take place, was not stipulated in the 1980 Charter (although it was still being adhered to as late as ). 30 From the 1970s the lectures became available through recordings as well as live, and Gordon Huelin s 1978 history of the College noted that tapes were then being sent down each week for students in the Biological Departments who were based at Half Moon Lane in Herne Hill. 31 It is hard to provide comparative figures for the numbers of students over the years who registered for the AKC or took and passed the examinations, or to accurately assess the proportion of eligible students who have taken advantage of these opportunities, because the kinds of students admitted to the College, and the definition of what constitutes a regular student have changed considerably over time. In , when the Theological Committee reported that 104 students had taken the examinations, the total number of individual students at University of London, King s College was some 2,730, but this included occasional students who would not have been eligible to take the AKC. 32 The College Calendar for reported that 263 men and 146 women took the AKC examination after attending the courses: an increase of 21 men and nine women on the previous year. The numbers of men had more than doubled and the number of women had nearly trebled in the previous four years and the numbers this year are a record, the Calendar reported. 33 In the Non-theological AKC was awarded to 105 students, and the nontheological part of the College had some 2,265 students overall. In , 308 non-

6 6 theological students entered the AKC examination out of a total roll of some 2,626 nontheological students in the College. Gordon Huelin s 1978 history of the College provides figures for Non-theological AKC examination results between 1968 and 1977, when the number of annual entries varied between 344 and 213, and the number of passes and credits together varied between 326 and In 1995, 373 students took the Nontheological AKC, of whom 359 passed or gained distinctions, and in 2008, 479 took the examination of whom 97 achieved a distinction and 312 a pass. 35 From the mid 1990s the confusing nomenclature by which the two types of AKC were named after the type of students who took them, rather than the actual character of the courses, was changed. Under the old system the AKC that was actually non-theological in character was known as the Theological AKC, and the AKC that was mainly theological in character was known as the Non-theological AKC. To avoid confusion, the courses are now simply referred to as the AKC for General Students and the AKC for Students of the Department of Theology & Religious Studies. 1 King s College Council minutes of 5 June 1828, and public advertisements in the press of the following week, quoted in FJC Hearnshaw, The Centenary History of King s College London (London: Harrap 1929), page King s College Calendar , page King s College Calendar , page King s College Calendar , page Hearnshaw, page Hearnshaw, page Memorandum to Lord John Russell, Home Secretary, quoted in Hearnshaw, page Hearnshaw, page King s College London Calendar, , page King s College London Calendar, , page King s College London Act, 1882, paragraph Calendar of King s College London and University of London, King s College, , page v. 17 King s College London Calendar, , page See Schedule 1, paragraph 40, and Schedule 1, paragraph 42, of the King s College London (Transfer) Act of 1908, quoted by Hearnshaw, page Calendar of King s College London and University of London, King s College, , page Calendar of King s College London and University of London, King s College, , page King s College Archives, KAD/F40: AKC as a qualification for Holy Orders, Special file, box 2, holds correspondence about whether the bishops would accept the AKC as equivalent to the Central Ordination Examination. Up to 1937 advertisements in The AKC state that The Diploma (Associate of King s College) is accepted by most Bishops as the academic qualification for Ordination, and from 1938 they state that The Associateship of King s College is an officially recognised equivalent of the General Ordination Examination. 22 King s College Archives, KAD/F29 AKC for Women, Special File 2, contains a letter dated 10 November 1920 from Cicely M Ellis, asking whether her application to sit as a student for the AKC in Theology has been considered. 23 King s College Archives, KAD/F29 AKC for Women, Special File 2, letter from Reverend Walter Robert Matthews dated 23 February See a letter to the Principal of King s from Olive Emily Rippengal BD AKC, dated May 2009.

7 7 25 The last College Calendar in which the Theological AKC is mentioned in this respect is that for (page 155). King s College London Calendar, , page Document headed Richard Harries Dean of King s College London, , quoted by permission of Lord Harries in an to the author dated 15 May Information given by Lord Harries in an to the author dated 15 May Quoted in Hearnshaw, page Quoted in Hearnshaw, page King s College London Calendar, , page Gordon Huelin, King s College London (London: University of London King s College, 1978), page Calendar of King s College London and University of London, King s College, , page Calendar of King s College London and University of London, King s College, , page v. Huelin, pages Comparison of AKC Results ( ), document dated 18 June 2008.