Disestablishmentarianism
Disestablishmentarianism is a movement to end the Church of England's status as an official church of the United Kingdom.
Anglican disestablishment
Irish church
The campaign to disestablish the
Eventually, as G. M. Trevelyan put it, "the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish Protestant Church was carried out in a masterly and sympathetic manner by William Ewart Gladstone, whose known position as an enthusiastic Churchman stood him in good stead during the negotiations";[4] and in 1869 an Act of the British Parliament enabling the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was passed, coming into effect on 1 January 1871.
English developments
The early 19th century saw
The campaigners were called "Liberationists" (the "Liberation Society" was founded by Edward Miall in 1844); and gathered strength to the point where, mid-century, Anglicans and Dissenters alike would have been astonished to learn that the church would remain established over a century later.[6] There were, however, several reasons this campaign failed: parliamentary reform of the church to make it more efficient; Whig acquiescence in a system whereby they could appoint latitudinarian bishops with liberal views; and a dissenter focus instead on a process by which nearly all of the legal disabilities of nonconformists were gradually dismantled.[3]: 152–158
The campaign for disestablishment was revived in the 20th century from inside the church, when Parliament rejected the 1929 revision of the
Welsh conflicts
The triumph of Methodism in Wales led by the 19th century to a situation where the vast majority of Protestants were not members of the Church of England, which in turn fuelled a long and bitter struggle for disestablishment, only resolved in the wake of the Welsh Church Act 1914 when in 1920 the Church of England was disestablished in Wales, becoming the Church in Wales.[2]: 385
Presbyterian disestablishment
Pressure to disestablish the Presbyterian Church of Scotland began in 1832, with dissidents like Thomas Chalmers arguing that a state church tended "to secularize religion, promote hypocrisy, perpetuate error, produce infidelity, [and] destroy the unity and purity of the Church".[8] However, focus swiftly shifted to the question of lay patronage within the church, not its separation from the state;[3]: 165 and it was only well after the dissident split that created the Free Church of Scotland, on the grounds that "they quitted a vitiated Establishment",[9] that the Free Church joined William Ewart Gladstone in calling for the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland itself.[10]
The twentieth century saw Presbyterian differences gradually diminished, and in 1929 the Free Church joined the Church of Scotland,[2]: 71 to form the largest church in Scotland, in what can be considered a form of disestablishment.[11]
Literary echoes
In
See also
References
- ^ a b G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the 19th Century (London 1922) p. 288
- ^ a b c S. H. Steinberg, ed., A New Dictionary of British History (London 1963)
- ^ a b c d E. Halévy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1963)
- ^ G. M. Trevelyan, History of England (London 1926) pp. 680–681
- ^ E. Halévy, The Liberal Awakening (London 1961) pp. 31, 278–279
- ^ E. Halévy, Victorian Years (London 1961) p. 418
- ^ a b "Nick Clegg advocates separation of Church and state". BBC News. 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
- ^ Quoted in E. Halévy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) p. 135–136
- ^ Chalmers, quoted in E. Halévy, Victorian Years (London 1961) p. 74
- ^ S. Mitchell, ed., Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia (2011) p. 311
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica: "Free Church of Scotland": "By 1929 patronage had been abolished in the Church of Scotland, and that church had been disestablished".
- ^ Trollope, A. (1947) [1858]. Doctor Thorne. London. p. 380.
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