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.

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 church Anglican whose sympathies were for separation of church and state, felt disgusted that the liturgy was made, as he saw it, a parliamentary football.

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 procedings.

Section 8 of the Act allowed an archdeacon, church warden or three adult male parishioners of a parish to serve on the bishop a representation that in their opinion:

The bishop had the disretion to stay procedings but, if he allowed them to procede, the parties had the opportunity of submitting to his direction in the matter with no right of appeal. The bishop was able to issue a monition but if the parties did not agree to his jurisdiction then the matter was sent for trial (section 9).

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.

Though the prosecutions ended when a Royal Commission in 1906 recognised the legitimacy of pluralism in worship, the Act remained in force for 91 years until it was finally repealed on 1 March 1965 through the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measures of 1963 (No. 1).

Territorial extent

The Act purported to extend to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These are Crown dependencies and the power of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to legislate for them is a confused and controversial matter (see Crown dependencies: Relationship with the UK).

List of clergy imprisoned

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

See also

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

References

Bibliography

• Bentley, J. (1987) Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Attempt to Legislate for Belief ISBN 0-19-826714-2
• (Google Books)
  • (Google Books)
  • Nichols, A. (1993) The Panther and the Hind: Theological History of Anglicanism ISBN 0-567-29232-0
  • Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline (1906) Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline
  • (Google Books)