The Working Men's College- WMC, being among the earliest adult education institutions established in the United Kingdom, is Europe's oldest extant centre for adult education and perhaps one of its smallest. The name is now often abbreviated to WMC. Founded in 1854 the College was established by Christian Socialists to provide a liberal education for Victorian skilled artisans to counter what its founders saw as the failings in practice of the social theory of Associationism. The founding of the College was also partially a response to concerns about the revolutionary potential of the Chartist Movement. Its early protagonists were also closely associated with the Co-operative Movement and labour organisations. The College's founders – a view reached in 1904 – were Frederick Denison Maurice, (the first principal), Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays), John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow, Frederick James Furnivall, Lowes Cato Dickinson, John Westlake, Richard Buckley Litchfield and John Llewelyn Davies.