Ecclesiastical Titles Act

views updated

Ecclesiastical Titles Act, 1851. In 1850, Pope Pius IX, encouraged by Nicholas Wiseman, announced the restoration of a Roman catholic hierarchy in England with English territorial titles, such as archbishop of Westminster. This provocative move, accompanied by comments on ‘the Anglican schism’, was the consequence of the great numerical increase from Irish immigration of Roman catholics in England in the 1840s and the church's more aggressive attitude to proselytization in England; it caused one of the final bouts of English anti-popery. Lord John Russell, the prime minister, further encouraged protests by his ‘Durham letter’ and by passing in 1851 the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, which forbade Roman catholics from using English place-name titles. Opponents of the bill such as Gladstone pointed out that the episcopalian church in Scotland, which was not established, already did what the Roman catholics proposed to do. The Act was a dead letter from the start and was repealed by Gladstone in 1871.

H. C. G. Matthew