New College Settlement

About

The New College Settlement was a student settlement based on the Pleasance in the Southside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by students of New College in 1893, its work continued until 1952. New College was the ministerial training college for the Free Church of Scotland.

The New College Missionary Society had undertaken home mission work in deprived areas of Edinburgh since 1845, settling in the former buildings of Pleasance Free Church in 1876. In 1893, a tenement for resident student workers was added to the mission premises, establishing the mission as part of the growing settlement movement. Having previously relied on student wardens, a permanent, ordained warden, John Harry Miller, was appointed in 1908.

In 1913, the settlement was constituted as Pleasance Mission Church. In 1919, this united with nearby Arthur Street United Free Church. Miller became minister of the united charge of Pleasance United Free Church, holding the role in tandem with the wardenship of the settlement.

By the wake of the Second World War the Pleasance area was experiencing depopulation and the settlement closed in 1952. The settlement's buildings consisted of the former Pleasance Free Church and, next...