ABSTRACT

The dissenting academies rose mainly as a result of the Conformity Legislation of the years 1662–5 and the statutes of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge which together excluded Dissenters from higher education. The effects of this legislation operated in two ways. First, non-conformist ministers and laymen would not let their sons go to universities where they would have to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity and the Thirty-Nine Articles, and consequently there was a demand for schools. Secondly, the ejected clergy provided a supply of teachers who could establish academies and schools and so answer this demand.