Rev Richard Cecil (1799 - 1865) was famous as the tutor of David Livingstone.
Cecil taught at The Turvey Acadamy. Among the students were William Gill, Samuel Martin and many others. There were usually 18 students at a time and about half became missionaries, the other half Nonconformist ministers throughout Britain and the Empire. The Acadamy had been formed as the Universities of Oxford & Cambridge were very reluctant to admit Nonconformists.
As well as Turvey's, there were also acadamies being The Bedford Theological Seminary (1840-66) and Cotton End Acadamy (1840-1874). Before their creation, local Nonconformists scholars had studied under John Sutcliff at Olney's Dissenting Acadamy (1792-1814) or under the Bull family who ran the Dissenting Acadamy at Newport Pagnell (1782-1850).
If anyone out there has any more information on this fascinating institution, I would be most grateful if you could let me know - I will of course acknowledge all sources.
The minutes,superintendent's journals, financial registers etc are currently stored at the National Record Archives in Kew, record NRA 20141 Carlton School, record ref x 521. I will try to get to see them as soon as possible.
