 They were encouraged by Beilby Porteus, the Bishop of London, himself an abolitionist and reformer, who sympathised with many of their aims.The term "Clapham Sect" was a later invention by James Stephen in an article of 1844 which celebrated and romanticised the work of these reformers.The reformers were partly composed of members from St. Edmund Hall at Oxford and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where the Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Charles Simeon had preached to students from the university, some of whom underwent an evangelical conversion experience and later became associated with the Clapham Sect.