Public Worship Regulation Act 1874

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The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 (37 & 38 Vict. c.85) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church of England.

Contents 1 Tait's bill 2 The Act 3 List of clergy imprisoned 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 External links

[edit] Tait's bill

Tait's bill was controversially given government backing by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who called it a bill to put down ritualism and referred to the practices of the Oxford Movement as a mass in masquerade. Queen Victoria too was supportive of the Act's Presbyterian intentions. However, Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone, a high Anglican whose sympathies were for separation of church and state, felt disgusted that the liturgy was made, as he saw it, a parliamentary football.

[edit] The Act

Before the Act, worship in the Church of England had been regulated by the Court of Arches with appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Act established a new court, presided over by former Divorce Court judge Lord Penzance. Many were scandalised by such parliamentary interference with the course of worship and, moreover, by the supervision of a secular court, even though bishops had discretion to order a stay of proceedings.

The Act provided a casus belli for the Anglo-Catholic English Church Union and the evangelical Church Association. Many clergy were brought to trial and five ultimately imprisoned for contempt of court.

A Royal Commission in 1906 finally recognised the modern approach to pluralism in worship.

[edit] List of clergy imprisoned

• Rev. Sidney Faithorn Green, Rector of St. John's, Miles Platting
• Rev. T. Pelham Dale, Rector of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, in the City of London
• Rev. E. W. Enraght, Rector of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, West Midlands
• Rev. James Bell Cox, Vicar of St. Margaret's, Liverpool
• Rev. Arthur Tooth, Vicar of St. James', Hatcham

[edit] See also

• Anglican Eucharistic theology
• Ritualism
• Julius v. The Bishop of Oxford

[edit] Bibliography

• Bentley, J. (1987) Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Attempt to Legislate for Belief ISBN 0-19-826714-2
• Nichols, A. (1993) The Panther and the Hind: Theological History of Anglicanism ISBN 0-567-29232-0

[edit] External links

• The History of the English Church Union 1859-1894, by the Rev. G. Bayfield Roberts (1895).
• Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, 1906