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48-432: Nonconformism – which included Baptists , Congregationalists , Unitarians , Wesleyans and other branches of Methodism – was a significant religious movement in mid-nineteenth century Britain. The UK census of 1851 reported that just under half the church-going population, which itself was around half of the total population, were Nonconformists. While no religious movement was able to grow its audience in proportion to

96-470: A century and a half. Culturally, in England and Wales , discrimination against Nonconformists endured even longer. Presbyterians , Congregationalists , Baptists , Calvinists , other "reformed" groups and less organised sects were identified as Nonconformists at the time of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Following the act, other groups, including Methodists , Unitarians , Quakers , Plymouth Brethren , and

144-475: A corporate conscience. Among the theoretical objections to a church-state relationship was the possibility of conflicted loyalties in situations where the desire of the state differed from the conviction of the religion, potentially leading to extreme cases such as martyrdom . More specifically, while repeal of measures such as the Test Acts had done much to give Nonconformists freedom of worship they still felt

192-559: A great part of the more active members of society, who have the most intercourse with the people have the most influence over them, are Protestant Dissenters. These are manufacturers, merchants and substantial tradesman, or persons who are in the enjoyment of a competency realised by trade, commerce and manufacturers, gentlemen of the professions of law and physic, and agriculturalists, of that class particularly who live upon their own freehold. The virtues of temperance, frugality, prudence and integrity promoted by religious Nonconformity...assist

240-532: A leading role in several constituencies at the 1865 and 1868 general elections. LAter, between 1871–73, Miall introduced three separate motions in parliament on the subject of disestablishment but he did not achieve his ultimate goal. He died in 1881. During his time, there were concessions gained as a part of deals to ensure that the Liberal Party had the support of the Liberation Society but

288-564: A major role in English politics. In a political context, historians distinguish between two categories of Dissenters, in addition to the evangelical element in the Church of England. "Old Dissenters", dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, included Baptists , Congregationalists , Quakers , Unitarians , and Presbyterians outside Scotland. "New Dissenters" emerged in the 18th century and were mainly Methodists. The " Nonconformist conscience "

336-463: A non- Anglican church or a non-Christian religion. More broadly, any person who advocated religious liberty was typically called out as Nonconformist. The strict religious tests embodied in the laws of the Clarendon Code and other penal laws excluded a substantial section of English society from public affairs and benefits, including certification of university degrees, for well more than

384-489: A registrar was present. Also in 1836, civil registration of births, deaths and marriages was taken from the hands of local parish officials and given to local government registrars. Burial of the dead was a more troubling problem, for urban chapels rarely had graveyards, and sought to use the traditional graveyards controlled by the established church. The Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880 finally allowed this. Oxford University required students seeking admission to submit to

432-632: A series of disabilities on Nonconformists that prevented them from holding most public offices, that required them to pay local taxes to the Anglican church, be married by Anglican ministers, and be denied attendance at Oxford or degrees at Cambridge. Dissenters demanded removal of political and civil disabilities that applied to them (especially those in the Test and Corporation Acts). The Anglican establishment strongly resisted until 1828. The Test Act 1673 made it illegal for anyone not receiving communion in

480-580: Is used in a broader sense to refer to Christians who are not communicants of a majority national church , such as the Lutheran Church of Sweden . The Act of Uniformity 1662 required churchmen to use all rites and ceremonies as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer . It also required episcopal ordination of all ministers of the Church of England—a pronouncement most odious to the Puritans ,

528-513: The 1906 general election , which has been described by Ian Machin as "the greatest nonconformist electoral victory" with nearly 200 of their brethren returned to Parliament. With this decline came an lessening of the demands for disestablishment. Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland took place in 1871 and that of the Church in Wales occurred in 1920 but in neither case did it happen because of

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576-542: The English Moravians were officially labelled as Nonconformists as they became organised. The term dissenter later came into particular use after the Act of Toleration 1689 , which exempted those Nonconformists who had taken oaths of allegiance from being penalised for certain acts, such as for non-attendance at Church of England services. A census of religion in 1851 revealed Nonconformists made up about half

624-737: The Irish Catholics in an otherwise unlikely alliance. The Nonconformist conscience was also repeatedly called upon by Gladstone for support for his moralistic foreign policy. In election after election, Protestant ministers rallied their congregations to the Liberal ticket. (In Scotland, the Presbyterians played a similar role to the Nonconformist Methodists, Baptists and other groups in England and Wales.) Many of

672-626: The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Cambridge University required that for a diploma. The two ancient universities opposed giving a charter to the new London University in the 1830s, because it had no such restriction. London University, nevertheless, was established in 1836, and by the 1850s Oxford dropped its restrictions. In 1871 Gladstone sponsored legislation that provided full access to degrees and fellowships. The Scottish universities never had restrictions. Since 1660, Dissenters, later Nonconformists, have played

720-500: The 20th century, until only pockets of nonconformist religiosity remained in England. Nonconformity in Wales can be traced to the Welsh Methodist revival ; Wales effectively had become a Nonconformist country by the mid-19th century; nonconformist chapel attendance significantly outnumbered Anglican church attendance. They were based in the fast-growing upwardly mobile urban middle class. The influence of Nonconformism in

768-475: The Church of England to hold office under the crown. The Corporation Act 1661 did likewise for offices in municipal government . Although the Test and Corporation Acts remained on the statute-book, in practice they were not enforced against Protestant nonconformists due to the passage of various Indemnity Acts , in particular the Indemnity Act 1727 , which relieved Nonconformists from the requirements in

816-770: The Established Church. Even so, and even as part of these measures, new slights and sectarian complications emerged. It was against this background of holding an influential position yet perceiving discrimination that Nonconformist protest in forms such as the Liberation Society took shape. Edward Miall was a pastor at the Congregational chapel in Leicester who had been inspired by those who had been campaigning against church rates. The imprisonment in 1840 of one of his congregation for non-payment of church rates caused him to leave his ministry to become editor of

864-657: The House of Commons when it came to taking the lead in church reform". Anglican spokesmen for the Liberation Society in Parliament included the Radicals William Clay , Thomas Duncombe , John Roebuck and John Trelawny . Their efforts were more evident and included Clay's 1854 attempt to introduce legislation to abolish church rates. In the 1860s the Society concentrated much of its efforts in Wales, playing

912-528: The Nonconformist community" almost from its foundation and until the death of Miall in 1881. The Society campaigned on issues including church rates and discrimination both in cemeteries and the established universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford . At its heart, however, was a drive for disestablishment rather than mere removal of discriminatory practices. Miall's efforts relied heavily on political means to achieve religious ends, one outcome of which

960-672: The Nonconformists elected to Parliament were Liberals. Relatively few MPs were Dissenters. However the Dissenters were major voting bloc in many areas, such as the East Midlands. They were very well organised and highly motivated and largely won over the Whigs and Liberals to their cause. Gladstone brought the majority of Dissenters around to support for Home Rule for Ireland , putting the dissenting Protestants in league with

1008-566: The Old group supported mostly Whigs and Liberals in politics, while the New, like most Anglicans, generally supported Conservatives . By the late 19th century, the New Dissenters had mostly switched to the Liberal Party. The result was a merging of the two groups, strengthening their great weight as a political pressure group. After the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed in 1828 , all

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1056-524: The Party never became an organ of the Society, although it used the Society's organisational skills for its own purposes. Elisabeth Jay says that Miall's use of secular methods in pursuit of religious change "was perhaps the seed of failure for his great ambition, for the younger men whom he had stirred came to see social and political reform as ends in themselves." The number of Nonconformists declined fairly uniformly across their various denominations soon after

1104-707: The Test Act 1673 and the Corporation Act 1661 that public office holders must have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in an Anglican church. In 1732, Nonconformists in the City of London created an association, the Dissenting Deputies to secure repeal of the Test and Corporation acts. The Deputies became a sophisticated pressure group, and worked with liberal Whigs to achieve repeal in 1828. It

1152-461: The Wesleyans as the century progressed, meant that they could play a major role in determining political outcomes, both as an influential block of opinion within the Liberal Party and more generally in the country as a whole. The Nonconformist belief in freedom of conscience for individuals meant that they thought there should be no connection between the state and church because that would imply

1200-606: The authorised ecclesiastical institution of the kingdom as inseparable from their elevated position ... To belong to the church is to side with respectability; to dissent from it is to cast in your lot with the vulgar. Accordingly, Dissenters, simply as such, are esteemed inferior. Miall and his fellow Nonconformist Members of Parliament (MP) were not particularly effective in that venue. Miles Taylor says of those elected in 1852 - who included James Bell , William Biggs , Lawrence Heyworth and Apsley Pellatt - that they "were either almost completely silent, or became tongue-tied in

1248-756: The comparable term until the Church of Ireland 's disestablishment in 1869 was "Dissenter" (the term earlier used in England), commonly referring to Irish Presbyterians who dissented from the approved Anglican communion. English Dissenters such as the Puritans who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist , dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists. By law and social custom, Nonconformists were restricted from many spheres of public life – not least, from access to public office, civil service careers, or degrees at university – and were referred to as suffering from civil disabilities . In England and Wales in

1296-613: The early part of the 20th century, boosted by the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival , led to the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Wales in 1920 and the formation of the Church in Wales . In other countries, the term Nonconformist is used in a broader sense to refer to Christians who are not communicants of a majority national church , such as the Lutheran Church of Sweden . The largest Nonconformist church in Sweden,

1344-468: The efforts of the Liberation Society. The change had much to do with the fact that Roman Catholicism and Nonconformism, respectively, were clearly favoured by the majority of the population and also because of the effects of nationalism and linguistic variation. Separate campaigning movements emerged in those countries, distinct from the Liberation Society. The situation in Scotland was different again, with

1392-622: The faction of the church which had come to dominance during the English Civil War and the Interregnum . Consequently, nearly 2,000 clergymen were "ejected" from the established church for refusing to comply with the provisions of the act, an event referred to as the Great Ejection . The Great Ejection created an abiding public consciousness of nonconformity. Thereafter, a Nonconformist was any English subject belonging to

1440-529: The first MPs elected for the Labour Party in the 1900s were also nonconformists. Nonconformists were angered by the Education Act 1902 , which provided for the support of denominational schools from taxes. The elected local school boards that they largely controlled were abolished and replaced by county-level local education authorities that were usually controlled by Anglicans. Worst of all

1488-500: The hated Anglican schools would now receive funding from local taxes that everyone had to pay. One tactic was to refuse to pay local taxes. John Clifford formed the National Passive Resistance Committee . By 1904 over 37,000 summonses for unpaid school taxes were issued, with thousands having their property seized and 80 protesters going to prison. It operated for another decade but had no impact on

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1536-423: The household, religion, and moral behaviour. Religiosity was in the female sphere, and the Nonconformist churches offered new roles that women eagerly entered. They taught Sunday school , visited the poor and sick, distributed tracts, engaged in fundraising, supported missionaries, led Methodist class meetings , prayed with other women, and a few were allowed to preach to mixed audiences. Parliament had imposed

1584-531: The increase in population over the remainder of the century, it seems that the Nonconformists were more actively observant than their Church of England counterparts towards its end. Generally, those who followed the various Nonconformist sects tended to be supporters of the Liberal Party rather than its main opposition, the Conservatives . This cohesion, which increased with the left-ward movement of

1632-466: The late 19th century the new terms " free church " and "Free churchman" (or "Free church person") started to replace "Nonconformist" or "Dissenter". One influential Nonconformist minister was Matthew Henry , who beginning in 1710 published his multi-volume biblical commentary that is still used and available in the 21st century. Isaac Watts is an equally recognised Nonconformist minister whose hymns are still sung by Christians worldwide. The term

1680-613: The linkage between the Nonconformists and Liberal Party was weakening, as secularisation reduced the strength of Dissent in English political life. Today, Protestant churches independent of the Anglican Church of England or the Presbyterian Church of Scotland are often called " free churches ", meaning they are free from state control. This term is used interchangeably with "Nonconformist". The steady pace of secularisation picked up faster and faster during

1728-430: The movement losing momentum from around the mid-1880s despite a clear majority of the population not being aligned with the Church of Scotland . Notes Citations Bibliography Nonconformist (Protestantism) Nonconformists were Protestant Christians who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England . Use of

1776-782: The new Nonconformist weekly newspaper in 1841. With the additional impetus of controversy regarding discrimination in James Graham's 1843 proposals for changes to education provisions in the Factory Acts and the schism in the Church of Scotland , Miall formed the British Anti-State Church Association in 1844. The group was renamed in 1853 as the Liberation Society on the advice of the relatively moderate veteran campaigner, Edward Baines . The Liberation Society, says historian Richard Helmstadter, became "the most important political organisation of

1824-521: The number of people who attended church services on Sundays. In the larger manufacturing areas, Nonconformists clearly outnumbered members of the Church of England. Nonconformists in the 18th and 19th century claimed a devotion to hard work, temperance, frugality, and upward mobility, with which historians today largely agree. A major Unitarian magazine, the Christian Monthly Repository asserted in 1827: Throughout England

1872-413: The prop that legitimised the role of the aristocracy and indeed the monarchy itself. There was indeed a wave of support for a more democratic society at that time and Miall repeatedly attacked the mutuality of the relationship between church and the social elite, believing it to be a force for snobbery and a barrier to progress. He said The upper ten thousand with very few exceptions regard connection with

1920-571: The school system. The education issue played a major role in the Liberal victory in the 1906 general election , as Dissenter Conservatives punished their old party and voted Liberal. After 1906, a Liberal attempt to modify the law was blocked by the Conservative -dominated House of Lords ; after 1911 when the Lords had been stripped of its veto over legislation, the issue was no longer of high enough priority to produce Liberal action. By 1914

1968-410: The state so that he could practice proscribed rituals. Some people, such as Richard Masheder, a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge , noted that the movement had the potential to effect change well beyond religious affairs because of the symbiotic relationship between the Established Church and the upper levels of society, whereby each buttressed the position of the other. Disestablishment might remove

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2016-412: The temporal prosperity of these descriptions of persons, as they tend also to lift others to the same rank in society. The emerging middle-class norm was for women to be excluded from the public sphere—the domain of politics, paid work, commerce and public speaking. Instead, it was considered that women should dominate in the realm of domestic life, focused on care of the family, the husband, the children,

2064-583: The term Nonconformist in England and Wales was precipitated after the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians ( Presbyterians and Congregationalists ), plus the Baptists , Brethren , Methodists , and Quakers . In Ireland,

2112-663: The weight of what they considered to be inappropriate and discriminatory practices. These practices included compulsory local levies known as church rates that were imposed on people, regardless of their religious belief, for use by the Established Church of England for maintenance and running of their parish churches . Failure to pay, which happened as a form of protest, could lead to seizure of property and imprisonment. The state attempted to address concerns by, for example, introducing civil marriage and public burial grounds that included areas that were not consecrated by

2160-439: Was a major achievement for an outside group, but the Dissenters were not finished. Next on the agenda was the matter of church rates , which were local taxes at the parish level for the support of the parish church building in England and Wales. Only buildings of the established church received the tax money. Civil disobedience was attempted but was met with seizure of personal property and even imprisonment. The compulsory factor

2208-421: Was finally abolished in 1868 by William Ewart Gladstone , and payment was made voluntary. While Gladstone was a moralistic evangelical inside the Church of England, he had strong support in the Nonconformist community. The marriage question was settled by Marriage Act 1836 which allowed local government registrars to handle marriages. Nonconformist ministers in their own chapels were allowed to marry couples if

2256-595: Was that he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Rochdale in the 1852 general election , having first tried for election in 1845. The net of the Liberation Society spread wider, though. It encompassed disaffected groups such as the Chartists and Free Traders as well as militant Nonconformists. It was a temporary recourse even for some members of the Established Church, notably the High Church cleric Alexander Mackonochie , who wanted less interference from

2304-518: Was their moral sensibility which they tried to implement in British politics. The "Nonconformist conscience" of the Old group emphasised religious freedom and equality, pursuit of justice, and opposition to discrimination, compulsion, and coercion. The New Dissenters (and also the Anglican evangelicals) stressed personal morality issues, including sexuality, family values, and temperance . Both factions were politically active, but until mid-19th century

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