British Muslim Heritage Centre

The college was built as an independent (i.e. congregational) college in 1840–43, the architects being Irwin and Chester. The site was in the new suburb whose development had been begun about 10 years earlier by Samuel Brooks; its name later became Whalley Range. The aim of the Lancashire Independent College was a project of the Lancashire Congregational Union to provide higher education for Non-Conformists who were excluded from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge until 1871. The three founders were George Hadfield, Thomas Raffles and William Roby (minister of the Grosvenor Street Chapel, London Road, Manchester). The Blackburn Academy arose from courses of lessons given to…