Victorian Church and Society

  The Privy Council, a secular Court, announced a decision on the case of the Reverend George Gorham in 1850. The Anglican B ishop of Exeter Henry Phillpotts had refused to allow him to become vicar of St. Peter's in Bramford Speke, Devon because of Gorham's theology of Baptism, which Philpotts regarded as not conform ing to the doctrine of the Church of England. Reverend Gorham held that Baptism was not sacramentally effective and that an adult decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour was necessary. Bishop Phillpotts, however, was a High Church Anglican who could not accept what he regarded as a denial of Article XXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles: Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are discerned from other that be not christened, but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and o...

  The Assize Sermon of Keble in 1833 fuelled the development of the Oxford Movement, focussing on the activities of Keble, Newman, Pusey, Manning and several others. In particular on the Tracts that were published by members of the group led to the term The Tractarian Movement being used to describe the group and its followers. Sir William Butterfield was an architect who became involved in the Cambridge Camden Society in 1842. This society was founded by two Oxford undergraduates, Benjamin Webb and John Mason Neale, who were evangelicals but became advocates of the Tractarian Movement after reading the Tracts. Butterfield contributed to the Society’s Journal, the Ecclesiologist. This journal had a list of “Architects Approved” and “Architects condemned”. Butterfield was on the approved list whereas Charles Barry was one of those condemned. In 1854 Butterfield parted company with the Society, as he was just beginning to establish his reputation as an “Anglican Pugin”. In ...

There were a number of people who objected to the existence of the Church of England and its established status within England. Among these dissenters were the Wesleyan Methodists and several other protestant denominations as well as atheists and Unitarians. These groups opposed the state registration of births only through the Baptismal Registers of the Parish Church and since 1753 the permission of the established church as the only one that was able to conduct marriages. At the end of life, church ownership of graveyards and burial sites meant that, although dissenters could be buried the rites that were used may have been ones of which they disapproved. In addition every citizen was required to pay a local rate towards the church upkeep, aid to the poor and the maintenance of the parish (for example the repair of roads). Although dissenters and atheists were allowed to attend the vestry meetings (because they were open to all parishioners) overall control remained in the hand...