Antecedents Prior to the
American Revolution, the
Church of England in America existed under the episcopal oversight of the
Bishop of London. There were no American bishops and ecclesial authority was exercised by “
Commissaries” such as the Rev.
James Blair. While American ordinands had to travel to England to be ordained, many of them were able to train for the ministry in the Colonies. As
Harvard was
Congregationalist, Anglican training largely occurred privately or at the
College of William & Mary (from 1693) and later also at
Yale College (from 1701). In 1754, the Rev.
Samuel Johnson founded the
King's College, New York (now
Columbia University) as an Anglican institution, in part to prepare men for the ministry. Johnson had been a close friend of the English priest, philosopher, and missionary
George Berkeley and had induced him to donate his farm and library to Yale in 1731.
Foundation and Middletown years: 1849–1928 Berkeley Divinity School began as the theology department of
Trinity College, Hartford, an
Episcopal school which was founded by the Rt. Rev.
Thomas Church Brownell in 1823. Instead of remaining within the college (like the departments at
Kenyon College and
Sewanee: The University of the South), the fledgling divinity school moved to
Middletown, Connecticut in 1853 after Williams, now
Assistant Bishop of Connecticut, resigned his college presidency to focus on his diocesan work. The seminary was intended to act as a mediating alternative between the
Anglo-Catholic–leaning
General Theological Seminary in New York and the
evangelical-leaning
Virginia Theological Seminary. The name of the seminary alludes to the vision of philosopher and Bishop
George Berkeley, who a century earlier had planned a seminary in the western hemisphere; this use of his name for an educational institution precedes its association with California by some decades. In 1860 Mary W. Mütter (née Alsop) endowed a chapel in memory of her late husband Dr.
Thomas Dent Mütter. On the
Feast of the Epiphany, 1861 the first Chapel of
St. Luke the Physician opened to public worship. It was consecrated by Williams on 16 March 1861. The chapel was designed “in the decorated style of
Gothic architecture,” in
collegiate seating with 62 stalls and a five-sided
apse. In this early period, the seminary was functionally part of the private household of the Bishop, operating in a similar manner to
Cuddesdon College founded by Bishop
Samuel Wilberforce in
Oxford in the same year. During the Williams tenure, seminarians lived, worshipped, and studied alongside their dean and professors. Students were expected at
Morning and Evening Prayer five days a week with––unusually for that period––
Eucharist every Sunday. At first, these services were celebrated in the church, but were later transferred to the chapel. By 1904, a Thursday Eucharist was added. The seminary also developed a series of academic and ecclesial affiliations, including one with
Wesleyan College, allowing students in both institutions access to lectures in the other.
New Haven years: 1928–1971 Ladd remained committed to
Social Gospel movements throughout his tenure and also expanded public access to seminary education, inaugurating a Summer School of Theology for Women from 1923 to 1925. After many years of discussion about potential moves or mergers, Ladd transferred Berkeley to
New Haven in 1928 to take advantage of the resources of
Yale University. The impossibility of immediately selling the Middletown campus, as well as the
Great Depression caused another prolonged period of financial instability from 1929 to 1935. Eventually, these were overcome and Berkeley moved into Sachem Hall (renamed Brewster Hall for The Rt. Rev.
Chauncey B. Brewster) at the corner of Prospect and Sachem street in 1940. After Ladd's death in 1941, he was succeeded by Prof. Charles Baker Hedrick as Acting Dean and then by the Rev. Lawrence Rose from
Central Theological College, Tokyo. Rose himself had been expelled from Japan along with many other Christian missionaries in 1940. Rose left in 1947 after being elected dean of
General, and was succeeded by the Rev. Percy Linwood Urban Sr., who had begun as Berkeley's professor of
systematic theology in 1941. In the late 1940s and early 1950s under Urban's deanship, Berkeley grew significantly, buying and renovating a number of buildings off Prospect Street. Students also moved from their long-temporary chapel in the attic of a former barn (“the upper room”) to a purpose-built chapel with 78 student and 11 faculty stalls. The Rev. Richard Hooker Wilmer Jr., previously the Episcopal Chaplain at Sewanee and then Yale, succeeded Urban in 1957. Over the course of the 1960s, however, the seminary began to once again experience financial hardship.
Yale years: 1971–present In 1971, as the Episcopal Church sought to reduce the number of seminaries, The Very Rev. Michael Allen was appointed dean to seek a solution to Berkeley's financial challenges. A new agreement between Yale and Berkeley resulted in a closer affiliation, rather than amalgamation with another Episcopalian institution; since then all students of Berkeley Divinity School have also been students of
Yale Divinity School and take a Yale degree. As a consequence of this merger, Berkeley sold its campus on Sachem Street to Yale and purchased a converted
Edwardian mansion on St. Ronan Street to house the
Deanery, chapel, offices, classrooms, and a few student apartments. Its former campus was demolished between 2009 and 2012 to make room for two new residential colleges including
Pauli Murray College, named for the
Episcopal priest and activist. Allen was succeeded by the brief tenure of The Very Rev. Charles Halsey Clark (1977–1982), and then The Very Rev. James E. Annand (1982–1991), after whom the "Annand Program for Spiritual Formation" is named. After the seven-year tenure of The Very Rev. Philip W. Turner III, Berkeley elected R. William Franklin to the deanship, to date the only lay person to be dean of the seminary (he would later be ordained). Franklin was the subject of some controversy in 2001 when he was alleged to have misappropriated some $10,000 in charitable funds. Franklin resigned, and a formal audit verified personal expenditures “not consistent with the dean’s employment agreement.” The incident resulted in some tension between Berkeley and Yale University, which apparently rescinded permission to build a new chapel on the main Divinity School campus. Over the course of his decade-long tenure, The Very Rev. Joseph H. Britton substantially stabilized relationships with Yale Divinity School and the university, and undertook a series of new initiatives including urban ministries and international exchanges. Britton was succeeded by The Very Rev. Andrew McGowan in 2014. == Programs of study ==