Jewish Naturalization Act 1753

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Statute of the Jewry (1275)
Edict of Expulsion (1290)
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Jewish Naturalization Act 1753
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The Jewish Naturalization Act 1753 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain, which received royal assent on 7 July 1753 but was repealed in 1754 due to widespead opposition to its provisions.[1]

During the Jacobite rising of 1745, the Jews had shown particular loyalty to the government. Their chief financier, Samson Gideon, had strengthened the stock market, and several of the younger members had volunteered in the corps raised to defend London. Possibly as a reward, Pelham in 1753 brought in the Jew Bill of 1753, which allowed Jews to become naturalized by application to Parliament. It passed the Lords without much opposition, but on being brought down to the House of Commons, the Tories made a great outcry against this "abandonment of Christianity," as they called it. The Whigs, however, persisted in carrying out at least one part of their general policy of religious toleration, and the bill was passed and received the royal assent (26 Geo. II., cap. 26).

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[edit] Opposition to the Jew Bill

Nevertheless, a great clamor was raised against it, and the lord mayor and the Corporation of London petitioned Parliament for its repeal. Effigies of Jews were carried about in derision, and placards with the inscription "No Jews, no wooden shoes" were pasted up in prominent public places. Such a scene is shown on the background in "Humours of an Election", the well-known series of oil paintings by William Hogarth, painted at the time.

The latter part of the popular cry referred to foreign Protestants, chiefly Huguenots, whom the Pelham ministry had also tried to naturalize in 1751, when the bill for their relief had been petitioned against and dropped. A naturalization bill for foreign Protestants had been passed as early as 1709 but was repealed three years later.

In 1754, the Jew Bill was repealed, and an attempt was even made to obtain the repeal of the act of 1740 permitting the Jews in the colonies to be naturalized. It is difficult to understand the intensity of the popular outburst, since the sons of the very persons whom the populace refused to allow to be naturalized became, by mere place of birth, subjects of the British crown.

[edit] Prominent Sephardim abandon Judaism

The repeal of the Jew Bill had a considerable impact on the Sephardic Jews, whom it had chiefly affected. Samson Gideon, the head of the community, determined to bring up his children as Christians, and his example was followed by many of the chief families during the remainder of the century. A general feeling of insecurity came over the community. At this time a number of the more prominent members of the Sephardic community, as the Bernals, Lopezes, Ricardos, D'Israelis, Aguilars, Bassevis, and Samudas, gradually severed their connection with the synagogue and allowed their children to grow up either without any religion or in the Established Church, which gave them an open career in all the professions.

[edit] German Jews

While the Sephardim chiefly congregated in London as the center of international commerce, Jews immigrating from Germany and Poland settled for the most part in the seaports of the south and west, such as Falmouth, Plymouth, Liverpool, Bristol, etc., as pawnbrokers and small dealers. From these centers it became their custom to send out hawkers every Monday with packs to the neighboring villages; and in this way connections were made with some of the inland towns, in which they began to settle, as Canterbury, Chatham, and Cambridge, not to mention Manchester and Birmingham. Traders of this type, while not of such prominence as the larger merchants of the capital, came in closer touch with English life; and may have helped to allay some of the prejudice which had been manifested so strongly during 1753.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 316. ISBN 0-304-35730-8. 
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