This page is about a college in Northern Ireland. For institutions with similar names, see United Theological College, Union Theological Seminary and Union School of Theology Union Theological College is the theological college for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and is situated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is governed by the Council for Training in Ministry. It has been responsible for training people for ministry in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and also runs courses open to the wider public. The college currently offers three residential courses at undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD levels, and five distance learning postgraduate courses in Theology through BibleMesh. The professors of the college constitute the Presbyterian Theological Faculty of Ireland (PTFI) which was granted a Royal Charter in 1881 to confer postgraduate academic degrees. A Supplemental Charter was granted in 2021 to modernise the original charter. In October 2021, the college established a partnership with St Mary's University, Twickenham, to accredit undergraduate degrees. This followed a time of controversy when the Professor of Church History was dismissed for “gross misconduct” and Queen's University Belfast broke its long-standing links with the college. History The Assembly’s College The college was founded in 1853 as the Assembly’s College. The Renaissance Revival style building with its grand Doric porch and Baroque attic was designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, the architect of the main building at Queen’s and built with Scrabo stone at a cost of £5,000. Merle d’Aubigné of Geneva participated in the opening ceremony on 5 December 1853 alongside Henry Cooke, President of the Faculty (the five other professors in the new college were John Edgar, Robert Wilson, William Killen, James G. Murphy and William Gibson). There was a large influx of students in the wake of the 1859 Revival and the south wing with its dining hall and student accommodation (“Chambers”) was added in 1869. Princeton seminary had an important influence in the shaping of the ethos of the college during this period: the Rev. Roberts Watts who was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology in 1866 hoped to make “Belfast another Princeton”. The north wing with its wood-panelled chapel was designed by John Lanyon, son of original architect, and completed in 1881. The first degrees under the Royal Charter were conferred in 1883. However, the death of Watts in 1895 marked the beginning of the end of the Princetonian influence. A partial union took place between the