Patterns of Religious Worship in 1851
In 1851 an official census of religious worship was held in Great Britain for the first and last time. Alongside the ordinary decennial census, parliament sought information about attendance at public worship on a given Sunday, about the number of sittings available in churches and chapels, and abou...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1960
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1960, Volume: 11, Issue: 1, Pages: 74-86 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 1851 an official census of religious worship was held in Great Britain for the first and last time. Alongside the ordinary decennial census, parliament sought information about attendance at public worship on a given Sunday, about the number of sittings available in churches and chapels, and about certain other matters. Because the result could be interpreted as showing that half the nation were Nonconformists, parliamentary defenders of the Establishment resisted any proposal to repeat a census of this sort. Every ten years from 1860 to 1910, they recommended instead a census of religious profession, by which the Church of England would certainly appear to be comparatively stronger. On these occasions nonconformist members of parliament invariably said that they would have a census of attendance or none at all. Consequently, since 1851 no official information about the religious preferences of the population has ever been collected. Its very uniqueness is one reason for coaxing out of the 1851 census of religious worship all the evidence it can yield. It is a richer quarry than its comparative neglect by social and ecclesiastical historians might suggest. The purpose of this article is to discuss how reliable it is as a source and what it reveals about religious practice in large English towns. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900063223 |