Westminster College, Cambridge

Westminster College in Cambridge is a theological college of the United Reformed Church, formerly the Presbyterian Church of England. Its principal purpose is training for the ordination of ministers, but is also used more widely for training within the denomination.

The college was founded in London in 1844 with a temporary home in the Exeter Hall before moving to permanent premises in Queen's Square, London in 1859. It then moved to Cambridge in 1899 following the gift of a prime site of land near the centre of the city by two Scottish sisters, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, both noted biblical scholars. Following an appeal for funds from the wider Presbyterian congregation, the college commissioned a new building designed by Henry Hare and built between 1897–1899. In 1967 the college began to amalgamate with Cheshunt College, Cambridge, presaging the union of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches to form the United Reformed Church in 1972.

Notable former students include Thomas Walter Manson, the biblical scholar and Rylands Professor in the University of Manchester; Lesslie Newbigin, ecumenist, bishop, scholar and pioneer of the Church of South India; William Paton, a precursor to Newbigin and a seminal figure in modern ecumenism; and W. D. Davies, known for his work on Paul and his Jewish background.

Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson were noted for their study of one of the earliest versions of the Old Gospels in Syriac Sinaiticus discovered in the monastery Saint Catherine's Monastery. The other important contributions to the field of Aramaic and Theology are the publications of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a 6th-century palimpsest written in Christian Palestinian Aramaic which contains portions of the Old Testament and New Testament, and another palimpsest manuscript of the Forty Martyrs of the Sinai desert and the Story of Eulogios, the Stone Cutter in the same Aramaic dialect. The sisters found the manuscripts in the antiquities market of Cairo and acquired them for the library in Westminster College. It was sold in 2010 to the Green Collection. They edited also many other important manuscripts in Syriac and Arabic.

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