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Church Disestablishment as a Factor in the General Election of 1885

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Simon
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Extract

The general election of 1885 has been described as ‘the nearest point ever attained to the accomplishment of disestablishment in England’; and it is a curious fact that the very considerable part played by the Church question in this election has largely escaped notice. For this the suddenness with which the issue of Irish Home Rule came to dominate the political scene after the election is primarily responsible. Yet for all its brevity - it was effectively only during the last few weeks of an extended election campaign that the controversy over disestablishment became dominant — the agitation over the question was both fierce and ferocious; and was closely bound up with the name of Joseph Chamberlain.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 791 - 820
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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12 Ibid. II Sept. 1885, pp. 894–9. The figure of 403 over-simplified, as the paper acknowledged, the differences in degree among them. Thus a substantial number of candidates made their support conditional upon whether the question was officially adopted by the leaders of the party, or whether the country in general favoured it, or some similar vague phrase. Only a small minority were hard-core Liberationists. Additionally, among the 403 listed as being in favour, 14 were in favour of Scottish disestablishment only, and 10 for Scotland and Wales only; while curiously among the 37 listed as being opposed, II were opposed only to English disestablishment, and another 3 only to English and Welsh disestablishment.

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