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Resistance to Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1828

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. I. T. Machin
G. I. T. Machin
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
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Extract

The repeal of the sacramental test in the Corporation and Test Acts seemed far more important in later years than when it was carried. In 1828 the event aroused comparatively little opposition, and it is not much of an exaggeration to say that ‘the repeal took place with amazing smoothness. Hardly a dog barked.’ The practical change made by repeal was scarcely perceptible. Repeal merely confirmed and strengthened the liberty enjoyed under Annual Indemnity Acts, while dissenters still found it difficult to enter some town councils until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 caused a striking influx of them to take place. Despite the lack of concern in 1828, the duke of Newcastle claimed in 1837 that ‘a sure consequence’ of repeal was the emancipation of catholics in 1829; that, as a consequence of this in turn, ‘liberalism, conciliation, and concession, prevailed without limit’ and that, ultimately, by an incredible combination of terms, ‘Jesuitical influence triumphed, and the Reform Bill was carried…Revolution was forcibly established.’ Neither the advocates of repeal in parliament, nor those politicians who acquiesced in it, expected that catholic emancipation would follow as a necessary consequence, though the former hoped that this cause would be encouraged. Even further removed, in 1828, seemed a wide measure of parliamentary reform. When this did come in 1832 it opened to dissenters a share in political power which was not envisaged four years before and gave greater importance to the change of 1828. Members of Oxford university showed this in 1863 when remonstrating with one of their M.P.s, W. E. Gladstone, for favouring the removal of the declaration adopted in place of the sacramental test in 1828

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 115 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Best, G. F. A., ‘Church and State in English politics, 1800–33’ (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1955), pp. 297–8Google Scholar.

2 The report which preceded the act of 1835 said that no dissenters had been elected to the corporation of Leicester since the repeal of the Corporation Act; Patterson, A. T., Radical Leicester, 1780–1850 (Leicester, 1954), p. 208Google Scholar. Cf. Greaves, R. W., The corporation of Leicester, 1689–1836 (2nd edn, Leicester, 1970), p. 136Google Scholar.

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6 Manning, B. L., The protestant dissenting deputies (Cambridge, 1952), p. 219 and ffGoogle Scholar. For the campaign of 1787–90 see Ditchfield, G. M., ‘The parliamentary struggle over the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1787–90’, English Historical Review, LXXXIX (1974), 551–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Davis, R. W., Dissent in politics, 1780–1830: the political life of William Smith, M.P. (London, 1971), pp. 44–50Google Scholar.

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11 Davis, Dissent in politics, p. 225.

12 Manning, pp. 225–6; Davis, p. 226.

13 Davis, Dissent in politics, pp. 227–30, 233–5.

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15 Cf. Halévy, E., A history of the English people in the nineteenth century, 11 (London, 1949), 264–5Google Scholar; Machin, G. I. T., The catholic question in English politics, 1820 to 1830 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 102–5Google Scholar

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20 ‘Civis’, Letter to Russell, pp. 35–6.

21 Manning, p. 233; see Davis, Committees for repeal, pp. 86–9.

22 Davis, Dissent in politics, pp. 242–3.

23 Parl. Debs. xvIII, 96–7; Monthly Repository, n.s., II (1828), p. 202; Manning, p. 234. For a resolution of the United Committee not to unite with catholics, see Davis, Dissent in politics, pp. 243–4.

24 Parl. Debs. xvIII, 124 (6 Feb. 1828).

25 Ibid. p. 306. Members of the Church of Scotland, like Fergusson himself, were subject to the test on appointment to office in England (though not in Scotland) and to posts in the army and navy. Many petitions for repeal came from Scotland (see The Times, 2 Apr. 1828, p. 2, also Parl. Debs. XVIII, 1571–80).

26 Scotsman, 19 Mar. 1828, p. 179; Edinburgh Evening Courant, 20 Mar. 1828.

27 Davis, Committees for repeal, pp. xx–xxi.

28 Part. Debs. XVIII, 727.

29 E.g. speeches of William Smith, 6 Feb. 1828 (ibid. p. 125); Lord John Russell, 28 Feb. 1828 (ibid. p. 818); Lord Redesdale, 3 Mar. 1828 (ibid. p. 925).

30 Liverpool Courier, 30 Jan. 1828. For similar catholic petitions see Parl. Debs. XVIII, 359, 923; Globe, 7 Mar. 1828.

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33 The Times, 25 Apr. 1828, p. 4.

34 Machin, Catholic question, pp. 147–55.

35 Journals of the house of commons, 83 (1828), index.

36 Ibid. 84 (1849), index.

37 Parl. Debs, XVIII, 678.

38 Ibid. pp. 687–8, 690–1.

39 Ibid. p. 768.

40 Monthly Repository, n.s., VI (1828), p. 65Google Scholar; Congregational Magazine, n.s., IV (1828), p. 165Google Scholar. See also Scotsman, 19 03 1828, p. 180Google Scholar.

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43 Lloyd to Peel, 12 Feb. 1828; Peel papers, B.L. Add. MS 40343, fo. 143.

44 Peel to Lloyd, 19 Feb. 1828; Memoirs of Peel, 1, 66 (quotedGash, N., Mr. Secretary Peel, London, 1961, p. 461Google Scholar).

45 Memoirs, 1, 67. Cf. Brose, Olive, Church and parliament: the reshaping of the Church of England, 1828–60 (London, 1959), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

46 Peel to Lloyd, 23 Feb. 1828; Peel papers, 40343, fo. 173.

47 Lloyd to Peel, 26 Feb. 1828; ibid. fo. 178.

48 Ellenborough, Political diary, 1, 39.

49 Ibid. p. 36, also p. 43.

50 Ibid. pp. 39–40.

51 Parl. Debs, XVIII, 729, 731–5.

52 Ibid. pp. 780–1.

53 Ibid. p. 738. Cf. ibid. pp. 743–4 (Lord Milton).

54 Globe, 27 Feb. 1828 (leading article).

55 Quoted in Liverpool Mercury, 29 Feb. 1828 (leader).

56 Ibid., also 7 Mar. 1828 (leader).

57 Parl. Debs. XVIII, 750–6.

58 Ibid. pp. 748, 757.

59 Ibid. pp. 711–15.

60 Division list ibid. pp. 781–4.

61 Ellenborough, I, 42.

62 Diary of E. J. Littleton (later Lord Hatherton), 1828–9, p. 32; Hatherton papers, Staffordshire Record Office. Cf. The Times, 4 Mar. 1828 (leader).

63 These were Sir George Cockburn, J. Somers Cocks, T. P. Courtenay, J. W. Croker, W. R. K. Douglas, Sir E. H. East, Viscount Eastnor, Lord Eliot, W. Vesey Fitzgerald, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, Sir Henry Hardinge, William Huskisson, Sir Hugh Innes, T. Frankland Lewis, Hon. Hugh Lindsay, Earl Mountcharles, Viscount Palmerston, Hon. James Sinclair, E. R. Tunno and Horace Twiss.

64 These twenty anti-catholics were Henry Bright (whig), L. W. Buck, E. J. Curteis, J. E. Dowdeswell, T. B. Fyler, Gen. Isaac Gascoyne, Frederick Gye, Sir William Heathcote, T. R. Kemp, Sir J. Dashwood King, H. B. Lott, Viscount Mandeville, C. N. Palmer, R. Bulkeley Philips, W. E. Powell, William Rickford (whig), Abel Smith, Bethel Walrond, William Ward and John Wells.

65 Parl. Debs XVIII, 763; Ellenborough, I, 43; R. Wilmot Horton to Peel, 27 Feb. 1828(PeeI papers, 40395, fos. 286–7).

66 Parl. Debs. XVIII, 825.

67 Ibid. pp. 823–4.

68 Ibid. p. 829.

69 Ibid. p. 830.

70 Ibid. pp. 830–1.

71 Ibid. pp. 832–3. See Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel, pp. 463–4.

72 Peel papers, 40343, fo. 190. Cf. Lloyd to Peel, n.d. (probably 17 Mar. 1828); Peel, Memoirs, I, 74–7.

73 Peel papers, 40396, fos. 3–4.

74 Peel to Kenyon, 4 Mar. 1828 (ibid. fos. 22–4), in reply to Kenyon to Peel, 4 Mar. 1828 (ibid. fos. 19–20).

75 Peel to Lloyd, 4 Mar. 1828; Peel, Memoirs, I, 73–4.

76 Memoirs, I, 74; Gash, pp. 464–5.

77 Parl. Debs. XVIII, 1181–3.

78 Ibid. pp. 1185–9.

79 Ibid. p. 1190.

80 Ibid. p. 1194 and ff.

81 Ibid. p. 1195.

82 Ibid. pp. 1203–6.

83 Ibid. pp. 1206–7.

84 Monthly Repository, n.s., II (1828), 276–7, 353, 427–8Google Scholar; Manning, Protestant dissenting deputies, pp. 238–40; Davis, Committees for repeal, pp. 94–7.

85 Parl. Debs. XVIII, 1329–32.

86 Peel, Memoirs, I, 98; Peel to archbishop of York, 27 Mar. 1828, copy (Peel papers, 40396, fo. 96).

87 20 Mar. 1828, p. 2 (leader).

88 Second Colchester, Lord (ed.), The diary and correspondence of Charles Abbot, (first) Lord Colchester (3 vols., London, 1861), III, 553Google Scholar.

89 Ibid.

90 Courier, 11 Mar. 1828.

91 Congregational Magazine, n.s, IV (1828), 220Google Scholar.

92 John Bull, 12 05 1828, p. 149Google Scholar.

93 Ibid. 31 Mar. 1828, p. 100.

94 Ibid. 3 Mar. 1828, p. 68.

95 Ibid. 10 Mar. 1828, p. 76.

96 Ibid. 17 Mar. 1828, p. 84.

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid. 24 Mar. 1828, p. 92.

99 Ibid. 21 Apr. 1828, p. 124.

100 Ibid. 7 Apr. 1828, p. 109.

101 Ibid. 21 Apr. 1828, p. 124, also 28 Apr. 1828, p. 132.

102 Ibid. 21 Apr. t828, p. 124; 24 Mar. 1828, p. 93.

103 Ibid. 5 May 1828, p. 140.

104 Standard, 6 Mar. 1828 (leader).

105 Ibid. 4 Mar. 1828 (leader).

106 Ibid. 18 Mar. 1828 (leader), 26 Feb. 1828.

107 Ibid. 19 Mar. 1828 (leader).

108 Liverpool Courier, 5 Mar. 1828 (leader).

109 Ibid.

110 Ibid. 26 Mar. 1828 (leader); see also ibid. 7 May 1828 (leader).

111 Courier, 27 Feb. 1828 (leader).

112 Leeds Intelligencer, 27 Mar. 1828 (leader). This paper also referred disparagingly to current dissenting agitation against church rates at Leeds; 6 Mar. 1828 (leader).

113 Liverpool Mercury, 28 03 1828, p. 104 (leader)Google Scholar.

114 London, 1828.

115 Considerations…, pp. 3–4.

116 Ibid. pp. 4–5, 9.

117 Ibid. p. 19.

118 Ibid. p. 28 (quoted John Brill, 7 Apr. 1828, p. 109). The Cromwellian era was cited to show the ‘republican and regicidal spirit’ of dissent.

119 Considerations…, p. 34; quoted John Bull, loc. cit.

120 Considerations…, pp. 30–1; quoted John Bull, loc. cit.

121 Considerations…, pp. 34–6; quoted John Bull, loc. cit.

122 7 Apr. 1828, p. 109.

123 Monthly Repository, n.s., II (1828), p. 341Google Scholar.

124 Ibid. p. 504; Hanna, W., Memoirs of the life and writings of Thomas Chalmers (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1850–1852), III, 215–20Google Scholar.

125 London, 1828.

126 A letter to the king… pp. 3–4.

127 Ibid. p. 8.

128 Ibid. pp. 9–12.

129 Ibid. pp. 25–6.

130 Ibid. p. 4.

131 Ibid. p. 29, also p. 15.

132 Ibid. p. 14.

133 Monthly Repository, n.s., II (1828), p. 427Google Scholar.

134 London, 1828. Reprinted in Lovaine, Lord (ed.), Speeches in parliament and some miscellaneous pamphlets of the late Henry Drummond Esq. (2 vols., London, 1860), II, 39–59Google Scholar.

135 See ibid. I, 256–9, 302–5, and especially Drummond's uninhibited anti-catholic tirades in the debate on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 1851 (ibid. pp. 168–97).

136 D.N.B., Henry Drummond.

137 A Letter to the king…; Lovaine, II, 42–3.

138 Ibid. p. 45.

139 Ibid. pp. 48–9.

140 Ibid. p. 47.

141 Ibid. pp. 52–4.

142 Ibid. pp. 51, 54–5.

143 Ibid. pp. 55–6.

144 Ibid. p. 56.

145 Ibid. p. 57.

146 Monthly Repository, n.s., ii (1828), 342Google Scholar.

147 Ibid. p. 341.

148 Ibid. pp. 177–82.

149 Ibid. pp. 177–9.

150 Ibid. p. 179.

151 Political Register, LXV, 308 (8 03 1828)Google Scholar.

152 Holland to Russell, 3 Apr. 1828; Russell, R. (ed.), Early correspondence of Lord John Russell (2 vols., London, 1913), 1, 273–4Google Scholar. Cf. Earl, of Ilchester (ed.), Elizabeth, Lady Holland, to her son, 1831–45 (London, 1946), pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

153 Bamford, F. and the duke of Wellington (eds.), The journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820–32 (2 vols., London, 1950), iiGoogle Scholar, I5gn.

154 Ibid. p. 184.

155 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, Apr. 1828; Twiss, H., The public and private life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, with selections from his correspondence (3 vols., London, 1844), iii, 36–7Google Scholar.

156 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, Apr. 1828; ibid. pp. 37–8.

157 Ibid. p. 38.

158 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, 12 Apr. 1828; ibid.

159 Part. Debs, xvm, 1462.

160 Ibid. pp. 1482–1517. See also Brose, Church and parliament, p. 14.

161 Parl. Debs, xvm, 1483–5, also 1518–19.

162 Ibid. 1502.

163 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, 19 Apr.1828; Twiss, Eldon, III, 46.

164 Colchester's diary, 21 Apr. 1828; Colchester, Diary and correspondence, III, 555.

165 Holland to Grey, 19 Apr. 1828; Holland House papers, B.L. Add. MSS 51547 (provisional no.).

166 Parl. Debs, xvm, 1578–91.

167 Ibid. pp. 1592–1609.

168 Ibid. pp. 1605–9; Colchester, m, 555–6. Cf. The Times, 23 Apr. 1828 (leader).

169 Parl. Debs, xviii, 1588–1604; Colchester, III, 556.

170 Part. Debs, xviii, 1609–10. The words ‘not even Christians’ showed persistent scepticism over the efficacy of Copleston's amendment. The twelve peers who signed were Eldon, Kenyon, Brownlow, Walsingham, Boston, Beauchamp, Malmesbury, Newcastle, Falmouth, Howe, Mansfield and Stanhope.

171 Parl. Debs, xix, 40, 41; Twiss, Eldon, in, 41.

172 Parl. Debs, XJX, 41.

173 Ibid. pp. 40–1.

174 Ibid. p. 44.

175 Ibid. pp. 41–8.

176 Ibid. pp. 41, 43.

177 Ibid. p. 42.

178 Ibid. p. 43.

179 Ibid. pp. 43, 48–9.

180 Ibid.p. 49.

181 Wellington to the king, 24 Apr. 1828, also 25 Apr.; Aspinall, A. (ed.), The letters of King George IV, 1812–30 (3 vols., Cambridge, 1938), III, 401–2. Cf. Wellington to duke of Montrose (lord chamberlain), 30 Apr. 1828; Second duke ofGoogle ScholarWellington, (ed.), Despatches, correspondence and memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur, duke of Wellington, K.G., in continuation of the former series [1818–32] (8 vols., London, 1867– 1880), iv, 411–12Google Scholar.

182 Lord Ellenborough, Political diary, 1, 88.

183 Lady Holland to Hon. H. E. Fox, 25 Apr. 1828; Ilchester, Elizabeth, Lady Holland, p. 82.

184 Ellenborough, 1, 89.

185 Ibid. pp. 89–90.

186 Ibid. p. 90.

187 Parl. Debs, xix, 113. He stated that his proposal did not refer to Crown offices (ibid.).

188 Ibid. pp. 113–15.

189 Ibid. pp. 115–18.

190 Ibid. p. 125.

191 Ibid. pp. 127–8.

192 Ibid. pp. 129–30.

193 Ellenborough, 1, 90. The bishops who voted against Eldon included Jenkinson of St David's and Ryder of Lichfield. Blomfield and another abstained (ibid.).

194 Ibid.

195 Pad. Debs, xix, 132–7.

196 Ibid. pp. 156–72. Cf The Times, 25 04 1828, p. 3Google Scholar; Henriques, Ursula, Religious Toleration in England, 1787–1833 (London, 1961), pp. 183–4Google Scholar.

197 Parl. Debs, xix, 172–9.

198 Ibid. p. 179.

199 Ibid.

200 Ibid. pp. 289–300.

201 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, 3 May 1828; Twiss, Eldon, in, 45–6.

202 Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes, May 1828 (ibid. p. 47), also 30 Apr. (?) 1828 (ibid. p. 44).

203 The Times, 17 05 1828, supplement, p. 3Google Scholar.

204 Monthly Repository, n.s., 11 (1828), 427Google Scholar.

205 Ibid. pp. 427–8. The declaration remained on the statute-book until 1866.

206 Blomfield to the dean of Peterborough, 22 Apr. 1828; Blomfield, A. (ed.), A memoir of Charles James Blomfield, D. D., bishop of London (2 vols., London, 1863), i, 1389Google Scholar.

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208 Holland to Grey, 19 Apr. 1828; Holland House papers, 51547 (provisional no.).

209 Ellenborough, Political diary, I, 92.

210 1 May 1828, p. 2.

211 E.g. Birmingham Journal, 10 May 1828.

212 Parl. Debs, xix, 580.

213 Cf. R. G. Cowherd, Politics of English dissent, pp. 334;Linker, R. W., ‘The English roman catholics and emancipation: the politics of persuasion’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History xviii (1976), 177Google Scholar.

214 See above, p. 120; Davis, Dissent in politics, p. 234.

215 Morley, J., The life of William Ewart Gladstone (3 vols., London, 1903), II, 251Google Scholar.

216 Monthly Repository, n.s., 11 (1828), p. 512Google Scholar; Manning, Dissentig deputies, p. 247.