Spurgeon College Auctioning Off Antiques, Artifacts, Memorabilia Amid Closure

Spurgeon’s College in London will begin auctioning off memorabilia and artifacts from the storied institution, including several items that belonged to ‘The Prince of Preachers’ himself, such as his bookshelf and the trowel used by Spurgeon to lay the foundation of the original Pastors College.

In June, Spurgeon’s College, the London-based Baptist institution founded in 1856 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, announced in a press release that it has closed its doors for good, citing financial hardships and struggles. Founded when he was just 22 years old, the college trained nearly 900 pastors during the esteemed Baptist preacher’s lifetime, and almost 200 new churches were planted in Britain alone.

Now, however, the school is selling off a host of items to pay off creditors, with auction house Hilco managing the sale. The asset groups include:

Historical & Institutional Artefacts Artefacts attributable to the late Charles Spurgeon

Intellectual Property Rights and materials associated with learning modules and courses including the trading name and domain name. Signed NDA required for further details.

Theological Library Collection Extensive range of over 50,000 books focused on biblical studies and theological subjects

General College Assets To include a light commercial vehicle, catering equipment, furniture and audio visual equipment

The problem was financial.

In 2017, Spurgeon’s College appointed Baptist minister and former Army chaplain Philip McCormack as the new principal.

McCormack and the governors of Spurgeon’s College became determined to transform the school from a Bible college training future ministers for the church into a “collegiate university” with “constituent colleges” across the UK and possibly internationally. Achieving this required Spurgeon’s to attain degree-awarding powers for taught degrees and post graduate research degrees. In 2017, Spurgeon’s relied on Manchester University (among others) to validate its courses; but with degree-awarding powers, the college could create and award its own degrees in both religious and secular fields.

As a university, Spurgeon’s would need to demonstrate enough surplus of capital to ensure a degree once offered would not run out of funding before students could complete it. To finance the construction of the education facilities and give the college an influx of cash, the school planned to sell a portion of its land to its development partner to build nearly 200 apartments to rent (later amended to 42 family homes to sell).

In 2018, Spurgeon’s College obtained a £350,000 loan from the Baptist Union Corporation, a property trustee for Baptist churches in the UK that also oversees the Baptist Union Loan Fund of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

May 24, 2019, the school acquired two additional loans from the private bank C. Hoare & Co. in London.

That fall, the Office for Students, which regulates the higher education system in England, rejected the school’s registration application after Spurgeon’s failed to meet the criteria for financial stability. According to the government, “The college was forecasting deficits, cash outflows from its core activities and weak liquidity.” Spurgeon’s lacked the financial resources to be sustainable, and in the opinion of the reviewers, did not have a realistic or adequate plan for addressing its financial situation.

Without that approval, students could not access funds from the government’s Student Loans Company. Spurgeon’s students were only informed of the school’s situation a month before term was to begin in 2019.

2022, Spurgeon’s annual expenditure of £2,213,459 was double its income of £1,086,793, leaving a deficit of £1,126,666.

In 2023, the school partnered with the New Testament Church of God to provide training for its ministers in addition to educating future Baptist clergy for BUGB.

To me, this looks like nothing to do with religious matters but classical financial overreach.

if the school had used its small surplus in 2016 to invest in its community, cultivate relationships and pursue a more gradual plan for growth rather than the radical money making (and money consuming) path it chose, it would have been solvent now.

the leadership’s ambition to craft a university from a religious training college was hubris

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