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Victorian Nonconformity and the memory of the ejected ministers: the impact of the bicentennial commemorations of 1862

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Timothy Larsen*
Affiliation:
Covenant College, Coventry

Extract

In the providence of God, St Bartholomew’s Day, 1862, fell on a Sunday, just as it had two hundred years before. On that earlier Sabbath, some 2,000 ministers were ejected from their livings because they could not conscientiously swear their ‘unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed’ in the new Prayer Book, or meet some of the other requirements of the new Act of Uniformity. Rejected by the Established Church, many of these men continued to fulfil their callings outside her pale and thereby gave a major, new impetus to Dissent. As the bicentenary of ‘Black Bartholomew’s Day’ approached, Victorian Nonconformists resolved to make the most of’the opportunity which God’s providence has brought round to them’. In this retrospective year, historical claims became powerful weapons in the struggle between Church and Dissent; and the past became contested territory which both sides sought to appropriate in order to add legitimacy to their present positions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1997

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