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Westminster College - A brief history
Westminster College buildings were completed in 1899 to the design of the architect H T Hare who was commissioned by the Presbyterian Church of England to build a college in Cambridge to replace their existing one in London. The move to Cambridge was largely at the urging of two remarkable twin sisters, Agnes and Margaret Smith, known now by their married names as Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson. In their visits to Cairo and to St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai they bought various valuable manuscripts, some of which are at the College and others in the Cambridge University Library. Their portraits hang in the College Dining Hall and a research scholarship they founded is still awarded. In 1967 Westminster joined with Cheshunt College, Cambridge. This was a college founded at Trevecka in Wales by the Countess of Huntingdon and a significant component of the English and Welsh Evangelical Revivals. After the Countess’s death in 1792 it moved to Cheshunt in Hertfordshire and then, in 1906 to Cambridge, moving into purpose-built premises in Bateman Street in 1914. The Bateman Street buildings were sold in 1967 and many of the contents moved to Westminster. There are valuable portraits of the Countess of Huntingdon and others and an extensive archive, including material from the United States and manuscript hymns of Charles Wesley, now to be found in Westminster College. In 1972 the Presbyterian Church of England and the Congregational Church in England and Wales united, although some individual Congregational Churches remained outside the union, and Westminster College was transferred into the ownership of the new United Reformed Church. Subsequently the Re-formed Association of the Churches of Christ joined the United Reformed Church in 1981 and the Congregational Union of Scotland joined in 2000. Westminster College now serves some of the needs of the United Reformed Church for initial and continuing ministerial education and also admits students from other denominations. It is part of the Cambridge Theological Federation, an ecumenical partnership which has over 25 academic staff and over 400 students. The Federation teaches students taking academic awards of Cambridge University and Anglia Ruskin University. In Westminster College visitors will normally see the large Dining Hall, whose ceiling incorporates badges from Presbyterian churches around the world and the chapel, added in 1921, which has some fine stained glass windows. The Library and the Senatus Room can be seen by arrangement. The college was named Westminster in honour of the Westminster Catechisms and Confession, the latter being the foundation creed for Presbyterian churches around the world. Original manuscripts from the Westminster Assembly of Divines, including the text of the Confession, are kept in the College. The college is a listed building, Grade II, having been completed to a very high standard. Almost all the original work survives, with modern facilities sympathetically introduced.
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