What’s the big deal? It’s a school...
Warrington was founded in 1756 as a dissenting protestant alternative to the Anglican Church (Church of England) controlled universities such as Cambridge and Oxford--The CoE is also protestant, but the dissenting protestants also refused to take up with the official Church of England--because at the time The Test Act prevented anyone who was not confirmed in the CoE from enrolling at a university, or holding govn’t employment (Norton) Yay for no legislatively guaranteed freedom of religion, you know, or not.
The Academy was supported by businessmen who were beginning to question the value of the traditional university education in an industrial society. To that end Warrington offered more pragmatic classes such as “chemistry, electricity, logic, magnetism, optics, [and] pneumatics as well as the more traditional subjects ... ethics, philosophy and theology” - “Warrington Academy and the Academy Movement.” Technical Education Matters. Technical Education matters, 4 September 2009, web. 29 nov 2015.
To read more about the background and founding purpose of Warrington Academy or the historical religious restriction on non-anglicans in England check out:
http://technicaleducationmatters.org/2009/09/04/warrington-academy-and-the-academy-movement/
The Norton Anthology of English Literature:The Romantic Period. Vol.D. 9th ed. London: W. W. Norton & co, 2012. print. pages 39, A46-A47.
