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Counting Religion in England and Wales: The Long Eighteenth Century, c. 1680–c. 1840

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2012

CLIVE D. FIELD
Affiliation:
35 Elvetham Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2LZ; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The statistical analysis of religion in England and Wales usually commences with the mid-nineteenth century. This article synthesises relevant primary and secondary sources to produce initial quantitative estimates of the religious composition of the population in 1680, 1720, 1760, 1800 and 1840. The Church of England is shown to have lost almost one-fifth of its affiliation market share during this period, with an ever increasing number of nominal Anglicans also ceasing to practise. Nonconformity more than quadrupled, mainly from 1760 and especially after 1800. Roman Catholicism kept pace with demographic growth, but, even reinforced by Irish immigration, remained a limited force in 1840. Judaism and overt irreligion were both negligible.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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158 HLRO, Main Papers, 1 Mar. 1706, and references at http://www.brin.ac.uk/sources/2531.

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167 Lesourd, ‘Catholiques’, Information Historique, 37; unpubl. DLitt diss. ii. 327; and Sociologie, 46, 97–102, 159.

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170 Hulbert, Religions, 462; Brady, Annals, 192, 227. 276, 312; Currie, Gilbert and Horsley, Churches and churchgoers, 25.

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172 HCP, 1852–3, lxxxix, p. clxxxii; Watts, Dissenters, ii. 28.

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182 HCP, 1852–3, lxxxix, p. clxxxii; Lipman, Vivian, ‘A survey of Anglo–Jewry in 1851’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England xvii (1951–2), 171–88Google Scholar.

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188 Groth Lyon, Eileen, Politicians in the pulpit, Aldershot 1999Google Scholar.

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190 For example, JSSL ii (1839–40), 374; iii (1840–1), 19; vi (1843), 21; xi (1848), 215.

191 Gentleman's Magazine xvii (1747), 326.

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197 Gilbert, Religion, 11–12, 28; Currie, Gilbert and Horsley, Churches and churchgoers, 22–3, 25–6, 85. Also to be found here, and of limited worth, are back-projections to 1800 of national totals for Anglican communicants.

198 Gill, Robin, The myth of the empty church, London 1993, 17, 169, 296–7Google Scholar, and The ‘empty’ church revisited, Aldershot 2003, 13, 124.

199 Obelkevich, Religion, 137–43; Barrie-Curien, Clergé, 312–19, 334–8, 431; Smith, Religion, 51–3, 244; Knight, Nineteenth-century Church, 80–2; Jacob, Lay people, 57–61; Spaeth, Church in an age of danger, 176–88; Gregory, Restoration, 262–70; Snape, Church of England, 16–19; Field, ‘A shilling’, 233–4; Marshall, Church life, 98–104.

200 CM n.s. x (1834), supplement; Monthly Repository n.s. viii (1834), 69.

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202 HCP, 1818, xviii, p. 215.

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204 HCP, 1852–3, lxxxix, p. clxxxii; Watts, Dissenters, ii. 28.

205 Dallas, Alexander, Pastoral superintendence, London 1841, 141Google Scholar. In a slum district of Liverpool, however, more than two-thirds of nominal Anglicans neglected worship: Hume, Missions, 29.

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207 For example, Religion in Hertfordshire, 1847 to 1851, ed. Judith Burg (Hertfordshire Record Publications xi, 1995), p. xxix; Yorkshire returns of the 1851 census of religious worship, ed. John Wolffe (Borthwick Texts and Calendars xxv, 2000), p. v; Church and chapel in … Shropshire, p. xxiii.

208 Gilbert, Memoir, 351; Spinks, Allen and Parkes, Religion in Britain, 15–16.

209 This is suggested by Clark, Jonathan, English society, 1688–1832, Cambridge 1985Google Scholar, and English society, 1660–1832, Cambridge 2000Google Scholar.

210 Brown, Callum, The death of Christian Britain, 2nd edn, London 2009Google Scholar.