 The college started as the Warrington Academy in 1757 where its teachers included Joseph Priestley, before being refounded as the Manchester Academy in Manchester in 1786.Originally run by English Presbyterians, it was one of several dissenting academies that provided religious nonconformists with higher education, as at the time the only universities in England – Oxford and Cambridge – were restricted to Anglicans.It taught radical theology as well as modern subjects, such as science, modern languages, language, and history; as well as the classics.