X. Lecture 1832 concession to the wishes of Dissenters became a necessity. The Marriage Act, 1836, 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 85, taken together with the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1836, 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 86, removed a grievance, and also introduced a substantial reform. It allowed the celebration of marriages in three different ways: -(1) As heretofore, in the parish church in accordance with the rites of the Church of England; (2) Without any religious ceremony, but in the presence of a registrar; (3) In a Nonconformist place of worship duly registered, according to such forms and ceremonies as the parties might see fit to adopt. The public was also benefited by arrangements which were intended to secure the registration at a central office of every marriage wherever celebrated. The Marriage Act of 1836 was disliked by the clergy, even though a Conservative statesman, such as Peel, accepted whilst attempting to limit the effect of a necessary change. But the Act was deeply marked by deference to Church feeling. The State did not institute any general system of civil marriage. Church marriages were hardly affected by the new law. Marriage in a Nonconformist chapel was not put on the same footing as a marriage in a church. The one derived its validity from the presence of the registrar, the other from celebration by the clergyman.' Thus a practical grievance was the marriages of Nonconformists celebrated in Dissenting chapels and not in accordance with the rites of the Church of England, had, it is said, been treated as valid. 1 The fees moreover payable to the registrar were heavier than the fees payable on a marriage in the parish church. This, it is said, imposed a tax or fine upon persons often very poor, who were not married in church (Lilly and Wallis, Manual of Law specially affecting Catholics, pp. 54-57). X. removed, but a sentimental grievance was kept alive. Lecture As time went on Nonconformists claimed the removal of what they deemed a badge of inferiority. If politicians could have looked only to the interest of the public, this grievance might easily have been remedied, and the proper registration of marriages been secured by requiring the presence of a registrar at every marriage, whether solemnised in church or in chapel. This simple course was not taken; it was opposed to the sentiment of the clergy, and no politician could overlook the force of ecclesiastical opinion. In 1898 the grievance of the Nonconformists was, after a lapse of sixty-two years, completely removed; but this removal was achieved by dispensing with the presence of a registrar at a marriage in a registered Nonconformist chapel.1 This method of reform satisfied Nonconformists, and gave no offence to Churchmen. It had but one defect: it somewhat diminished the security for the registration of marriages. To the deference, then, yielded to ecclesiastical opinion was sacrificed in 1836 the completeness of a necessary reform, and sixty years later, in 1898, the public interest in the due registration of marriages. The Divorce Act of 18572 was a triumph of individualistic liberalism and of common justice. It did away with the iniquity of a law which theoretically prohibited divorce, but in reality conceded to the rich a right denied to the poor. In the face of strenuous ecclesiastical opposition, headed by Mr. Gladstone, divorce was legalised, and divorced persons 1 The Marriage Act, 1898, 61 & 62 Vict. c. 58. X. Lecture were left absolutely free to marry. But here, again, regard was paid to clerical feeling. A clergyman of the Church of England is, after all, an official of the National Church; but under the Divorce Act he is allowed to decline to solemnise the marriage of any person whose former marriage has been dissolved on the ground of his or her adultery. Thus a clergyman, while acting as an official of the State, is virtually allowed to pronounce immoral a marriage permitted by the morality of the State. In 1832 the burial law involved a grievance to Dissenters. A man was entitled to be buried in the parish churchyard which contained, it might be, the tombs of all his friends and relatives, but any funeral in a churchyard was of necessity accompanied by the burial service of the Church of England, performed by a clergyman. There might well be Dissenters who either desired some other service, or on grounds of conscience or feeling objected to the burial service of the Church of England. At last in 1880, the Burial Laws Amendment Act made to any one who, for any reason, objected to the use of the Church burial service, the concession that any person entitled to burial in a particular churchyard might be buried there without the Church service, or with such religious service, if professedly Christian, as the person responsible for the funeral might think fit. Note, however, that no address which is not part of a religious service can be delivered in a churchyard. The concession, in short, made to the sentiment of persons not members of the Church of England 1 The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, 20 & 21 Vict. c. 55, 57, 58. 2 43 & 44 Vict. c. 41. has been restricted within the very narrowest limits Lecture compatible with the removal of a practical grievance. In 1832 a system of religious tests still closed the national universities in the case of Oxford wholly, in the case of Cambridge all but wholly-to any person who was not an avowed member of the Church of England. In every college church services were daily performed, and the attendance thereat of undergraduates was required. Any religious education given was education in the doctrines of the Church of England. The national universities were no places for Nonconformists of any class, and practically few Nonconformists, indeed, studied even at Cambridge till, at any rate, after the middle of the nineteenth century.2 At Oxford a young man, or, as in the case of Bentham, a mere boy, was required at matriculation to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Subscription was again required before taking the degree of B.A., and lastly before taking the degree of M.A. At Cambridge in 1832, no subscription of religious belief was, or (it is conceived) ever had been required at matriculation. If accepted by the college authorities students of any belief could come into residence, reside their full time, and enter for the degree examination. Their names would appear in the order of merit in the Tripos, but they could not actually obtain the degree without declaring themselves bona fide members of the Church of England. But whilst the University of Cambridge did not exclude Nonconformists from anything but the degree, they were practically all but excluded from the colleges. The masters and tutors would in most cases have either directly refused admission to a Nonconformist, or if he had been admitted, would probably have forced him to attend the college chapel. At Oxford, in short, Nonconformists were excluded by the rules of the university, at Cambridge they were virtually excluded by the rules of the colleges. All but a very few Dissenters were, till late in the nineteenth century, excluded both by the atmosphere of the place and by the conduct of the college authorities. See Appendix, Note III., University Tests. 2 Early in the nineteenth century a popular writer could describe our universities with gross technical inaccuracy, but with much substantial truth, as academies for the education of ministers of the Church of England. X. Lecture X. The era of reform did not bring with it the admission of the nation to the national places of learning. The passing through the House of Commons in 1834 of a Bill abolishing university tests, showed what was the wish of Dissenters, and proved that it was sanctioned by the liberalism of the day. The rejection of the Bill by the House of Lords, without any effective protest on the part of the nation, showed how great was the strength of the Church. The attempt, which was only in part successful, to provide in London something like a university open to men of all creeds, probably diverted the pressure of Dissenters for admission to Oxford and Cambridge.1 At last in 18542-twenty-two years after the passing of the Reform Act-the demand for university reform, at any rate at Oxford, could no longer be resisted. Parliament grudgingly opened or set slightly ajar the gates of the university, so as to make possible the entrance of persons not members of the Church of England. In principle this change 1 Policy or accident favoured the opposition, supported in the main by the opinion of Churchmen, to a necessary reform. The London University never became, in a strict sense, a university at all. University College provided a place of liberal education for Dissenters, just as King's College provided in London a place of liberal education for Churchmen. The London University itself became at last nothing but an examining body. The result was that, while the agitation for the abolition of tests at the national universities was checked and weakened, the foundation in London of a really national university open to every class of the nation was prevented. 2 The Oxford University Act, 1854, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 81. 3 At Cambridge the Cambridge University Act, 1856, 19 & 20 Vict. c. 88, threw open to Nonconformists all ordinary bachelors' degrees, all endowments tenable by undergraduates, and the nominal title of M.A.; but under that Act Nonconformist M.A.'s were still kept out of the senate and the parliamentary constituency. See Sir George Young, University Tests, p. 53, and Appendix, Note III. post. |