Harris Manchester College
University of Oxford
Harris Manchester College Arlosh Quad
Arms: Gules two torches inflamed in saltire proper, on a chief argent, between two roses of the field barbed and seeded, an open book also proper.
Location	Mansfield Road (map)
Coordinates	51°45′21″N 1°15′07″W / 51.755758°N 1.252044°W / 51.755758; -1.252044
Full name	Manchester Academy and Harris College
Latin name	Collegium de Harris et Manchester
Abbreviation	HMC
Motto	Veritas Libertas Pietas (Latin)
Motto in English	Truth, Freedom, Piety
Established	1786; 240 years ago (1786)
Named after	Philip Harris, Baron Harris of Peckham
Previous names	Warrington Academy, Manchester Academy and Manchester College
Architect	Thomas Worthington
Sister college	Homerton College, Cambridge
Principal	Beth Breeze[1]
Undergraduates	113[2] (2020)
Postgraduates	178 (2020)
Endowment	£14.4 million (2020)[3]
Website	www.hmc.ox.ac.uk
JCR	hmcjcr.co.uk
Map
Location in Oxford city centre

Harris Manchester College (HMC), officially Manchester Academy and Harris College, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

It was founded in Warrington in 1757 as the Warrington Academy, a college for Unitarian students and moved to Oxford in 1893. It became a full college of the university in 1996, taking its current name after its predecessor, the Manchester Academy, and donor Lord Harris of Peckham.

The college accepts students aged 21 years or over. With around 100 undergraduates and 150 postgraduates, Harris Manchester is the smallest undergraduate college in either of the Oxbridge universities.

The college started as the Warrington Academy in 1757 where its teachers included Joseph Priestley,^[4] before being refounded as the Mancester Academy in Manchester in 1786.^[5] 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, theology, science, modern languages, language, history, and classics. Its most famous professor was John Dalton, developer of atomic theory.^[6]

The college changed its location five times before settling in Oxford. It was located in Manchester between 1786 and 1803, York until 1840, Manchester again between 1840 and 1853, and University Hall, Gordon Square, London, until 1889. In York, it was located at 38 Monkgate, just outside Monkbar; later this was the first building of the College of Ripon and York St John (now York St John University). The key person in York was Charles Wellbeloved, a Unitarian minister. In 1840, when he retired, the college moved back to Manchester, where it stayed until 1853.^[7]

In 1840, the college started an association with the University of London, and gained the right to present students for degrees from London.^[8] In 1901, Gertrude von Petzold graduated from her training at Manchester College to become a minister in the Unitarian church, the first woman to be qualified as a minister in England.^[9]

From London it moved to Oxford, opening its new buildings in 1893.^[10] In Oxford, the Unitarian Manchester College was viewed with alarm by orthodox Anglicans. William Sanday was warned that his presence at the official opening of 'an institution which professedly allows such fundamental Christian truths as the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation to be treated as open questions' would 'tend to the severance of the friendly relation subsisting between the university and the Church'.^[11]

The Ministry of Works and Buildings requisitioned most of the college's buildings on 17 October 1941 to facilitate the Naval Intelligence and the Inter-Services Topographic Department (ISTD). ISTD operations focussed on gathering of topographical intelligence for the day when the Allies would return to continental Europe.^[12] The ISTD section housed in Manchester College played a role in the planning of Operation Overlord. The college's Arlosh Hall served as the main centre of operations, with Nissen huts and tents put up in the quads.^[12][13]

Manchester College became a permanent private hall of Oxford University in 1990 and subsequently a full constituent college, being granted a royal charter in 1996.^[14] At the same time, it changed its name to Harris Manchester College in recognition of a donation by Philip Harris, Baron Harris of Peckham.

The college houses several research centres, including the Commercial Law Centre, directed by Kristin van Zwieten;^[15] and the Wellbeing Research Centre, directed by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve.^[16]

In 2013, a student of the college, who was a general practitioner suffering from depression, hanged himself whilst living in the college accommodations.^[17] In 2020, a student studying philosophy, politics, and economics died by overdose in her college room.^[18]

In 2017, the college was accused of racial discrimination and profiling after it warned students to be "vigilant" after a black man was spotted on the college grounds, circulating CCTV images of the person.^[19] After the college email was leaked to the public, it was revealed that the man was an alumni of Oxford University.^[20] The man later accused the college, in a Guardian op-ed, of sharing a "criminalised image" of him, because of his skin colour.^[21]

In 2020, a PhD student of the college was convicted and sentenced to prison after attempting to solicit sex from a 14-year old boy in his accommodation. Following his conviction, he was suspended from the course but remained a registered student with the college.^[22]

Since October 2025 the principal of the college has been the sociologist, Beth Breeze.

The main quad was designed by architect Thomas Worthington, and built between 1889 and 1893. It houses the Tate Library and the chapel.^[23] The chapel contains stained-glass windows by the Pre-Raphaelite artists Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, as well as an organ painted by Morris and Co.^[24] The Arlosh hall, designed by Percy Worthington, was added in 1913.^[25] The inscription on the tower "It is later than you think, but it is never too late", refers to the role of the college in educating mature students.^[26][27]

• 
  Siew-Sngiem Clock Tower and Sukum Navapan Gate
• 
  Tate Library
• 
  Stained-glass windows of chapel
• 
  College grounds
• 
  Dining hall
• 
  Exterior of chapel

• People associated with Harris Manchester College
• 
  Joseph Priestley, (Warrington Academy) Credited with discovery of oxygen
• 
  Thomas Malthus, (Warrington Academy), British political economist
• 
  James Martineau (Manchester College, York), English religious philosopher
• 
  Gertrude von Petzold (Manchester College), First woman church minister in England
• 
  Tope Folarin (Harris Manchester College), Nigerian-American writer
• 
  Íngrid Betancourt (Harris Manchester College), Colombian senator and anti-corruption activist

• List of dissenting academies (19th century)

1. ^ "HMC gives warm welcome to new Principal, Beth Breeze". Retrieved 9 October 2025.
2. ^ "Student statistics". University of Oxford. 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
3. ^ "Harris Manchester College : Annual Report and Financial Statements : Year ended 31 July 2020" (PDF). ox.ac.uk. p. 20. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 November 2022. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
4. ^ "About the College - History". Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 21 April 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
5. ^ University of Oxford Archived 7 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine: Graduate Studies Prospectus - Last updated 17 Sep 08
6. ^ Davis, V.D. (1932). A History of Manchester College: From its Foundation in Manchester to its Establishment in Oxford (PDF) (1st ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. p. 63.
7. ^ "Charles Wellbeloved". uua.org. Archived from the original on 22 September 2006. Retrieved 24 September 2006.
8. ^ "University Hall (Dr. Williams' Library), Gordon Square - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.
9. ^ "Gertrude von Petzold" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
10. ^ Smith, Barbara, ed. (1986). Truth, Liberty, Religion: Essays celebrating Two Hundred Years of Manchester College. Oxford: Manchester College. p. xxiii. ISBN 0950871516.
11. ^ Howarth, Janet (16 November 2000). "The Self-Governing University, 1882–1914". In Brock, Michael George; Curthoys, Mark (eds.). The History of the University of Oxford: Volume VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2. Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780199510177. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
12. ^ ^{a b} Killoran, Sue (4 June 2017). "Harris Manchester College and the D-Day Landings". hmc.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
13. ^ "'Royalty' meet as college remembers D-Day role". Oxford Mail. 27 September 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
14. ^ www.hmc.ox.ac.uk Archived 2015-04-21 at the Wayback Machine
15. ^ "Commercial Law Centre". Archived from the original on 11 May 2020. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
16. ^ "University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre".
17. ^ "Doctor found hanged suffered despression". Oxford Mail. 29 July 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
18. ^ "Student spent night talking about mental health before she killed herself in room". Oxford Mail. 21 February 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
19. ^ "Oxford Uni In Race Row After Students Sent Security Alert About Black Grad On Campus". HuffPost UK. 7 February 2017. Archived from the original on 21 June 2024. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
20. ^ Woolcock, Nicola (8 February 2017). "Black 'intruder' sparks Oxford security scare". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
21. ^ Nylander, Femi (10 February 2017). "Why did Oxford circulate a criminalised image of me – because I'm a black man?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
22. ^ Shirreff, Lauren (16 October 2020). "Sex offender remains on list of registered students at Harris Manchester". The Oxford Student. Retrieved 13 February 2026.
23. ^ "Archived copy". Retrieved 26 March 2021.
24. ^ "About the Chapel". Harris Manchester College. Archived from the original on 13 January 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
25. ^ Hague, Graham; Hague, Judy. "The Unitarian Heritage" (PDF). Unitarian Heritage. p. 90. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
26. ^ "An Oxford Undergraduate Again - in my late 50s". Financial Times. 2 August 2018.
27. ^ "It's Never Too Late: Mature student Sue writes about her journey to Oxford".
28. ^ Smith, B. (1986). Truth, Liberty, Religion: Essays Celebrating Two Hundred Years of Manchester College. Oxford : Manchester College. ISBN 978-0-9508715-1-6. Retrieved 3 May 2023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

• Davis, V.D. (1932). A History of Manchester College: From Its Foundation in Manchester to Its Establishment in Oxford. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
• Schulman, Frank (1999). A Fine Victorian Gentleman: The Life and Times of Charles Wellbeloved. Oxford: Harris Manchester College. ISBN 0953484912.

• Harris Manchester College official website
• Virtual tour