Church Disestablishment as a Factor in the General Election of 1885

Simon, Alan J.

doi:10.1017/s0018246x0000889x

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The bishops, variously, encouraged anglicans to seek pledges against disestablishment and decried 'an infidel, democratic and socialist upheaval against religion and against our Lord Jesus Christ'. 47 However, the Irish home rule controversy in the final decades of the 19th century may have marked a peak of the bishops' role as parliamentary tribunes for pressure for the established Church's supremacy. 48 While seeking new avenues to support their defence of the Church in parliament, the bishops continued to act as champions of causes adopted by particular groups of churchmen or involving clear questions of christian morality.…”

Section: The Bishops As Spiritual Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

From Estate under Pressure to Spiritual Pressure Group: The Bishops and Parliament

Taylor¹,

Huzzey²

2018

Parliamentary History

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This essay traces the mutating place of the anglican bishops within the house of lords to explore revolutionary changes in the relationship between religion, parliament and political pressure from the late 17th to the 20th centuries. After the Restoration, the lords spiritual reoccupied a contested position in the upper chamber as representatives of the clerical estate of the realm. During the 18th century, they began to act as representatives of the church's lay and clerical members. In the 19th century, they made a strong target for thwarted reformers and nonconformist pressure groups which resented the privileged place of these appointed legislators. However, by the 20th century we can detect an inclusive role for the bishops as conduits of spiritual pressure and ecumenical concerns in a legislature which might otherwise neglect those anxieties. These contortions, then, exemplify changing patterns of parliamentary pressure and the place of religion in politics. The essay concludes that the bishops’ evolving role demonstrates the permeability of legislative deliberations, where clerical legislators might claim a role as channels for extraparliamentary pressure and under‐represented interests rather than the continuing supremacy of the state church.

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Section: The Bishops As Spiritual Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

From Estate under Pressure to Spiritual Pressure Group: The Bishops and Parliament

Taylor¹,

Huzzey²

2018

Parliamentary History

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“…20 Howard, "Joseph Chamberlain and the 'Unauthorized Programme,'" 477; Jamie Bronstein and Andrew Harris, Empire, State, and Society Anglican clergy in the countryside. 23 Indeed, historians have estimated the number of "Chamberlainite" Liberal MPs returned in 1885 to be as high as 160-80 (a growth of roughly one-third from 1880). This figure certainly suggests that the program was, as Chamberlain believed, widely cited by Liberal candidates and may have contributed to electoral success.…”

Section: ■■■mentioning

confidence: 99%

Joseph Chamberlain and the Third Reform Act: A Reassessment of the “Unauthorized Programme” of 1885

Blaxill¹

2015

J. Br. Stud.

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This article provides the first major analysis of the impact of Joseph Chamberlain's “Unauthorized Programme” on the General Election of 1885 in sixty-five years. Instead of focusing on high politics, it investigates the constituencies. Using quantitative analysis of linguistic data, it contends that historians have underestimated the program's impact on the speaking campaign, especially in the countryside, where its proposals of land reform, church disestablishment, and free education emerged as the dominant issues. That the “Unauthorized Programme” became so important so quickly in rural regions such as East Anglia, where radicalism had historically been weak, owed much to the underestimated importance of the enfranchisement of the agricultural laborer in 1884. Chamberlain's remarkable success in immediately setting the post-reform political agenda and in being seen as the chief threat by Conservative opponents fearful of the recently expanded democracy, arguably placed him in a significantly stronger position in the immediate aftermath of the 1885 election than historians—and perhaps he himself—imagined.

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“…150 Similarly, whigs, together with Argyll and Selborne, raised a great storm in 1885 during the short-lived but bitter nonconformist campaign for disestablishment in England and Scotland, over which Gladstone kept a resolute but ambiguous silence. 151 No single explanation of the Liberal split over home rule in 1886 could claim to account for the behaviour of even a large proportion of those who took sides. High politics, and considerations of career, were important in determining the attitude of men like Chamberlain and Harcourt.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and the Collapse of Gladstone's First Government, 1870–1874

Parry

1982

Hist. J.

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Gladstone has not been well served by the historiographical tradition dominant for much of this century. It has disseminated an image of him that emphasizes little more than an undefined ‘reformism’ and a moralizing populism; this is as unhelpful and distorted as is the interpretation, emanating from the same source, of much of the rest of nineteenth-century politics. It is no longer enough to judge public figures of this period by the degree of their commitment to nebulous platitudes like ‘social reform’ or ‘progress’: historians have recently exposed the flimsy foundations that sustain the reputations of even those most frequently celebrated in these spheres. It is misleading to concentrate attention on the development of institutional reform, centralized government, trade union legislation, or welfare statutes for the poor; franchise extension apart, advances here were often provoked solely by bureaucratic agency or by the concern of philanthropic backbenchers, and contributed only occasionally to the major disputes of Victorian political society. If we are to shed light on the domestic issues of vital importance to contemporary politicians, we need a far more coherent account than is now available of financial, taxation and land policy on the one hand, and, on the other, of the main subject of this article, the role of religion in politics.

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Church Disestablishment as a Factor in the General Election of 1885

Cited by 7 publications

References 8 publications

From Estate under Pressure to Spiritual Pressure Group: The Bishops and Parliament

From Estate under Pressure to Spiritual Pressure Group: The Bishops and Parliament

Joseph Chamberlain and the Third Reform Act: A Reassessment of the “Unauthorized Programme” of 1885

Religion and the Collapse of Gladstone's First Government, 1870–1874

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