The Rev J.H. Jowett, Organising Secretary of the S.P.G. for South Lincolnshire and Vicar of St Mark's Holbeach first suggested and proposed at a Missionary Conference in Oxford, a Training School which would act as a preparatory feeder to St. Augustine's College Canterbury and generally supply a missionary education to all who needed it from the North, the East and Midland Counties.

It was later agreed at a Church Congress at Croydon under the presidency of the Bishop of Lincoln.

Burgh le Marsh was selected due to the existence of suitable buildings, which had been a small middle class school set up in 1866 by Rev W.S. Thomason, available at very modest terms.

�The neighbourhood of Burgh which enjoys a reputation for exceptional healthiness, was already marked by special missionary associations; for it was from the Vicarage of Burgh that in 1862, The Rev. W. G. Tozer had been called to the Episcopal oversight of the Universities Mission in Central Africa; and it was from the neighbouring parish of Little Steeping that Dr Steere went forth, at first to help and eventually to succeed, him in the Bishopric.�

The college was founded on 25 th January 1878 it remained as a missionary college until 1936 when it closed.

 

A special thanksgiving service was held for the work the college had done during its 58 years of existence.

 

The Right Rev. A.W. Lee Bishop of Zululand who had been a student himself at the college in 1905 paid his tribute: �At first the College was a tiny place with no chapel, but a great burning faith. Owing to the coming of two men whom you at first regarded with suspicion, the growth developed. Under the inspired leadership of such men as Dodson, Foster and Boulter, the College grew until there is hardly a quarter of the habitable globe where men have not gone from this place to minister. What a glorious thing it would have been this afternoon to have seen a roll of the names of all who have gone forth to the frozen wilds of the Arctic, the veldt of Africa, the prairies of Canada and the burning planes of Australia.

 

Wherever man has gone, the men from Burgh have followed. It is a glorious record. Never forget it, you people of Burgh. In 58 years the world has heard the name of this place�

In 1948 it was opened as a girls school having 40 pupils many were daughters of clergy. By 1957 it closed again proving not to be profitable. A Mr M.Morton took over the lease and opened as a Preparatory School for Boys until it closed permanently in 1965. For a long time the college was in limbo, the Diocesan Council failed to find suitable tenants and it was then sold to building contractors and is now a private residential estate