The Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was passed by the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

in 1829. It was the culmination of the process of

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

throughout the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

. In Ireland, it repealed the Test Act 1672 and the remaining Penal Laws which had been in force since the passing of the

Disenfranchising Act The Disfranchising Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Ireland debated in 1727 and enacted in 1728, one of a series of Penal Laws, and prohibited all Roman Catholics from voting in parliamentary elections. Its full title is "An Act ...

of the Irish Parliament of 1728. Its passage followed a vigorous campaign led by Irish lawyer

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

that threatened insurrection. The British prime minister, the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

, and the home secretary,

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...

, although initially opposed, accepted the need for it to avoid civil strife. The act permitted members of the Catholic Church to sit in the parliament at Westminster. O'Connell had won a seat in a by-election for Clare in 1828 against an Anglican. Under the extant penal law, O'Connell, as a Catholic, was forbidden to take his seat in Parliament. Peel, the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...

, until then had been called "Orange Peel" because he always supported the Orange (anti-Catholic) position. Peel now concluded: "though emancipation was a great danger, civil strife was a greater danger." Fearing a revolution in Ireland, Peel drew up the Catholic Relief Bill and guided it through the House of Commons. To overcome the vehement opposition of both the House of Lords and

King George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

, the Duke of Wellington worked tirelessly to ensure passage in the House of Lords, and threatened to resign as prime minister if the king did not give royal assent.

Agitation

The campaign for Roman Catholic emancipation in Ireland was led during the years of 1828 and 1829 by Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847), organiser of the Catholic Association, but many others were active as well, both for and against. As Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1822 to 1828, the

Marquess Wellesley A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

(brother of the

) played a critical role in setting the stage for the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill. His policy was one of reconciliation that sought to have the civil rights of Roman Catholics restored while preserving those rights and considerations important to Protestants. He used force in securing law and order when riots threatened the peace, and he discouraged the public agitation of both the Protestant

Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also ...

and the Roman Catholic Society of Ribbonmen. Bishop

John Milner John David Milner (December 28, 1949 – January 4, 2000) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman and left fielder from to for the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Montreal E ...

was an English Roman Catholic cleric and writer highly active in promoting Roman Catholic emancipation until his death in 1826. He was a leader in anti-Enlightenment thought and had a significant influence in England as well as Ireland, and was involved in shaping the Roman Catholic response to earlier efforts in Parliament to enact Roman Catholic emancipation measures. Meanwhile, Ulster Protestants mobilised, after a delayed start, to stop emancipation. By late 1828, Protestants of all classes began to organise after the arrival of O'Connellite Jack Lawless, who planned a series of pro-emancipation meetings and activities across Ulster. His move galvanised the Protestants to form clubs, distribute pamphlets and set up petition drives. However the Protestant protests were not well funded or coordinated and lacked critical support from the British government. After Roman Catholic relief had been granted, the Protestant opposition divided along class lines. The aristocracy and gentry became quiescent while the middle and working classes celebrated Protestant dominance over Ulster's Catholics through Orange parades. (subscription only)

Compromise

The Parliamentary Elections (Ireland) Act 1829 (10 Geo. IV, c. 8), which accompanied emancipation and received its

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

on the same day, was the only major 'security' eventually required for it. This Act disenfranchised the minor landholders of Ireland, the so-called

Forty Shilling Freeholders Forty-shilling freeholders were those who had the parliamentary franchise to vote by virtue of possessing freehold property, or lands held directly of the king, of an annual rent of at least forty shillings (i.e. £2 or 3 marks), clear of all c ...

, and raised fivefold the economic qualifications for voting. Starting in the initial relief granting the vote by the Irish Parliament in 1793, any man renting or owning land worth at least forty

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

s (two

pounds sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO 4217, ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of #Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories, its associated territori ...

) had been permitted to vote. Under the Act, this was raised to ten pounds. The act also forbade the use of the episcopal titles already used by the Church of England (10 Geo. 4 c. 7, s. 24). It imposed a penalty of £100 on "any person, not authorised by law, who should assume the title of any archbishop, bishop or dean" and extended the provisions to the "assumption of ecclesiastical titles derived from any city, town, or place in England and Ireland, not being in an existing see". This was reinforced with the

Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 The Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 was an Act of the British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at ...

, which threatened confiscation of property of anyone outside the "

united Church of England and Ireland The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

" who used any episcopal title "of any city, town or place, or of any territory or district (under any designation or description whatsoever), in the United Kingdom". The 1851 act was never enforced and was repealed in 1871. The other impositions in the act, such as prohibitions against admittance to Catholic religious orders and public processions, were repealed with the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1926.

Political results

J. C. D. Clark Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark (born 28 February 1951) is a British historian of both History of the British Isles, British and History of the United States, American history. He received his undergraduate degree at Downing College, Cambridge. ...

(1985) depicts England before 1828 as a nation in which the vast majority of the people believed in the

divine right of kings In European Christianity, the divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandation is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy. It stems from a specific metaphysical framework in which a monarch is, before b ...

, and the legitimacy of a hereditary nobility, and in the rights and privileges of the Anglican Church. In Clark's interpretation, the system remained virtually intact until it suddenly collapsed in 1828, because Catholic emancipation undermined its central symbolic prop, the Anglican supremacy. Clark argues that the consequences were enormous: "The shattering of a whole social order. ... What was lost at that point ... was not merely a constitutional arrangement, but the intellectual ascendancy of a worldview, the

cultural hegemony In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of t ...

of the old elite." Clark's interpretation has been widely debated in the scholarly literature, and almost every historian who has examined the issue has highlighted the substantial amount of continuity before and after the period of 1828 through 1832. Eric J. Evans (1996) emphasises that the political importance of emancipation was that it split the anti-reformers beyond repair and diminished their ability to block future reform laws, especially the great

Reform Act of 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...

. Paradoxically, Wellington's success in forcing through emancipation led many

Ultra-Tories The Ultra-Tories were an Anglican faction of British and Irish politics that appeared in the 1820s in opposition to Catholic emancipation. The faction was later called the "extreme right-wing" of British and Irish politics.James J. Sack"Ultra torie ...

to demand reform of Parliament after seeing that the votes of the

rotten borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

s had given the government its majority. Thus, it was an ultra-Tory, the

Marquess of Blandford A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

, who in February 1830 introduced the first major reform bill, calling for the transfer of rotten borough seats to the counties and large towns, the disfranchisement of non-resident voters, the preventing of Crown office-holders from sitting in Parliament, the payment of a salary to MPs, and the general franchise for men who owned property. The ultras believed that a widely based electorate could be relied upon to rally around anti-Catholicism.

Amendment and repeal

Some sections of the act remain in force in the United Kingdom; of these, some remain in force in England, Wales and Scotland, but were repealed with respect to

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

by the Statute Law Revision (Northern Ireland) Act 1980. The entire act was repealed in Ireland by the

Statute Law Revision Act 1983 __NOTOC__ The Statute Law Revision Act 1983 (No 11) is an Act of the Oireachtas. Section 1 of the Act, with the Schedule, repeals, for the Republic of Ireland, various Acts of the Parliament of Ireland, the Parliament of England, the Parliament ...

Notes

External links

*
The text of the act

{{UK legislation Anti-discrimination legislation Anti-discrimination law in the United Kingdom United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1829 Constitutional laws of the United Kingdom British constitutional laws concerning Ireland 1829 in Ireland Christianity and law in the 19th century Catholic Church in the United Kingdom Law about religion in the United Kingdom 1829 in Christianity April 1829 events Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom