The structure of the student and tutor entries
The entries for students and tutors are displayed in up to six tabs. If one of the six sections contains no information at present the tab in question is not shown. For an example of an entry with all six tabs, see Kippis, Andrew (1725-1795).
1. The Background and education tab provides information about origin and family background, and gives, where known, place of birth and death, denomination, academy and university education, and funding details, as well as university degrees awarded (earned or honorary).
Most fields are clickable. Clicking on the academy, for example, will take the user to the relevant academy entry, while other clickable entries will retrieve a list of people who shared such attributes as place of birth or nationality, or were funded by the same body. Clicking on the borrowing record (where it exists) will take the user to the relevant page in the Virtual Library System. If applicable, further details are provided in the Notes section at the bottom of the entry, which is searchable in Advanced Search.
2. The Career tab provides career information, including details of ordination and society membership. Clicking on each of these entries will list other persons in the database who share these attributes. The entry for tutors differs to the extent that it lists the academies in which they worked, the posts they held, and the subjects they taught. The list of all subjects that have been entered in the database can be accessed under appropriate subject groups here: Subjects Taught.
If a Surman ID is given, it is clickable and opens the relevant entry in the Surman Index Online in a separate tab.
3. The Finances tab specifies details of amounts, dates, and academies for some students and tutors who were supported by Fund Boards.
4. The References tab provides lists of clickable printed sources and (in some cases) manuscripts relevant to the particular person.
5. The Archival Sources tab provides a list of sources that are more fully described and that specify the other persons cited in the source.
6. The Biographical Article tab, where it exists, provides access to the biography of a tutor. There are no biographical articles for students. Biographies have been written for a number of influential tutors who taught at an academy for three years or more, or held several tutorial positions in more than one academy. In the case of tutors for the period 1660 to 1729, a link is given in the Biographical Article tab to the appropriate article in Mark Burden, A Biographical Dictionary of Tutors at the Dissenters’ Private Academies, 1660–1729.
With a few exceptions, tutors for whom there is not enough information available, tutors who were employed for less than three years, and those who became influential after 1860 (the end date for the database) have only a database entry.
The following tutors currently have biographical articles:
Searching students and tutors using Advanced Search
The following fields are searchable:
| Students | Tutors |
|---|---|
| Surname | Surname |
| Forename | Forename |
| Academy | Academy |
| Student type | Subjects taught |
| Country of birth | Country of birth |
| Country of death | Country of death |
| University | University |
| Earned degree | Earned degree |
| Honorary degree | Honorary degree |
| Career | Career |
| Career type | Career type |
| Denomination | Denomination |
| Conformed | Conformed |
| Society membership | Society membership |
| Funding body | Funding body |
| Parents career type | Parents career type |
| Notes | Notes |
It is possible to search within every field outlined above and the search results can be limited by life dates or dates in an academy for students, and tenure of post for tutors.
Multiple fields can be searched at the same time.
For example, searches for students who were born in a specific county or country can be combined with the search for specific academies or universities, or career type.
For tutors, a search for denomination can be combined with a search for an academy, which would retrieve all tutors of a specific denomination for a particular academy.
'Career' allows free text searches, for example of congregations, places, or careers such as journalist.
'Career type' searches should be made from this list: academic scholarship; accounting and finance; agricultural; Anglican clergy; arts; clerical; commerce; education [non-tutorial]; educational/informational; engineering; industry; labour; landed; legal; literary; manufacturing; medical; military; ministerial; political/administrative; science; tutorial.
Notes allows free searches.
If you are not sure of the spelling of the search term, you can either search for the first part of the name, or use the wild cards '%' and '_'.
Sources for the student and tutor entries
To date information has been obtained from a variety of primary and secondary sources. The most important printed sources are the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), the Dictionary of Welsh Biography (DWB), obituaries, various edited lists of students, and secondary literature dealing with dissenting academies or dissenting education. Primary sources include manuscript lists of students, some produced by the tutors themselves, others by late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century historians of varying quality, as well as additional manuscript sources, such as records of trusts and the denominational funding bodies. Such sources can be looked up in the Bibliography (accessible via the Resources dropdown) or searched for in the Archives (see the About dropdown). For an assessment of some of these sources see the Introduction to Mark Burden, A Biographical Dictionary of Tutors at The Dissenters’ Private Academies, 1660–1729. The Surman Index was checked for the majority of the entries. For the reliability of the information derived from this particular source and the use of it please refer to the introductory pages of the Surman Index Online.
Work on the biographical data remains ongoing, and information provided is subject to correction and revision as new information comes to light.