The Congregational Board of Education was set up in 1843 "to promote popular education, partaking of a religious character and under no circumstances receiving aid from public money administered by Government." (extract from original rules).

Until 1826, when what is now University College, London opened, English non-conformists

English Dissenters

English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....

 were excluded from higher education

Higher education

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

, as only practising Anglicans

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 were admitted to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. A system of dissenting academies

Dissenting academies

The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and nonconformist seminaries run by dissenters. They formed a significant part of England’s educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries....

 developed, including Homerton Academy and Hoxton Academy in London.

With liberalisation, the Congregationalists adapted their focus, and the Board reorganised the former Homerton Academy as New College, London and what became Homerton College, Cambridge

Homerton College, Cambridge

Homerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.With around 1,200 students, Homerton has more students than any other Cambridge college, although less than half of these live in the college. The college has a long and complex history dating back to the...

. Morley Memorial Primary School in Cambridge was also set up as a training institution for students at Homerton College.

In 1868, the poet Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...

- who was a school inspector by profession - was commissioned to report on the eligibility of the Homerton schools for public funding.