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{{tag>people presidents}}
====== Thomas Church Brownell ======

Thomas Church Brownell was the first [[presidents|president]] of Trinity College (then known as [[washington_college|Washington College]]) from 1824 to 1831.

Born in 1779 in Westport, Massachusetts, Brownell taught Latin, Greek, Belles Lettres, Moral Philosophy, Chemistry, and Mineralogy at Union College in Schenectady, New York between 1805 and 1811. At some time before 1815, he left the Congregational Church. After becoming a priest in the [[episcopal|Episcopal]] Church in 1816, he accepted unanimous election as Bishop of Connecticut by the Episcopal Church three years later.

[{{:tcbrownell.jpg?400 |Thomas Church Brownell, ca. 1860. Photo credit: [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.35152558|Trinity College Archives]]}}]

Starting in late 1822, Brownell played a major role in the writing of the petition which led to the chartering of a college by the Connecticut state legislature on May 16, 1823. Rather than a Church-controlled academy, Trinity College began under the rule of a [[trustees|Board of Trustees]], whose members were not required to pass a religious test. Still, Bishop Brownell publicly saw the creation of Washington (later Trinity) College as a bulwark against what he called “a spurious liberality.” The lack of an Episcopal school had long prevented Episcopal parents in Connecticut from sending their boys to colleges whose professors espoused their faith. Indeed, in September 1823, a letter “to the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Church of England,” which Brownell signed simultaneously as Bishop and “President” of the nascent college, became part of a campaign pleading for donations to support the newly chartered college on the basis of its religious affinities to the state-supported Church of England. $30,000 was needed to be raised for the college's state charter to take effect.

On May 6, 1824, Thomas Brownell was formally elected President of Washington College by the Board of Trustees. Serving until December 1831, Brownell's presidency involved selection of the [[old_campus|site]] for the college, planning the course of study, creating a plan of governance, and codifying student discipline. In several areas, Brownell proposed radical ideas. For instance, he included practical and scientific studies alongside the traditional fare of classics. He also devised a curricula separated into eight categories--Political Economy, Belles Lettres, Science, Politics, Metaphysics, Mathematics, Morals, and History. Though Brownell's curricula was not implemented along these lines, there was a strong emphasis at Washington College on the natural sciences.

Brownell was so committed to furthering the College that he was criticized by fellow members of the Episcopal Diocese for neglecting his oversight of the rest of Connecticut's Episcopal churches. He did have time to serve as President of the African Mission School Society in [[hartford|Hartford]], which began in 1828. After resigning from Washington College in 1831, he remained actively supportive of the College. For example, Brownell solicited donations for the endowment of the Hobart Professorship, first awarded in 1837. To a certain extent, Brownell became a more powerful presence over governance of the College's trustees during the 1840s than he had been as the College's president. He was named [[chancellor_of_the_college|Chancellor]] and [[board_of_visitors|Visitor]] of Trinity College. In 1852, Brownell became the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of America. 

Brownell died in January 1865. Four years later, a [[brownell_statue| statue of Brownell]] was unveiled on Trinity's campus overlooking Bushnell Park. When Trinity moved to [[summit_campus|Summit Campus]] in 1878, the statue was re-erected on the Main Quad where it stands now, adjacent to the [[long_walk|Long Walk]].  

===== Succeeded By =====

[[wheaton_nathaniel_s|Nathaniel S. Wheaton]]
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===== Sources =====
[[http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/tcbrownell/|The Canterbury Project: Thomas Church Brownell]]

[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/w_books/4/|History of Trinity College]] (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 26-40.

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