Disestablishmentarianism is a movement to end theChurch of England's status as an official church ofEngland.
The campaign to disestablish theAnglicanChurch of Ireland began in the 18th century.[citation needed] A rich church, with 22 bishops drawing £150,000 a year in aggregate, and a further £600,000 going annually to the rest of the clergy,[1] it was wholly disproportionate to the needs of its worshippers, and consisted largely of absenteesinecurists.[1] Given that inIreland not even nominal adherence by the predominantlyRoman Catholic majority population could be expected for the (Protestant) established church,[2]: 70–71 defence of the latter became increasingly difficult, especially afterCatholic emancipation. TheChurch Temporalities Act 1833 was passed, reducing the number of sees from 22 to 12,[3]: 140–144 but attempts to redistribute the church's wealth failed amidst political controversy.
Eventually, asG. M. Trevelyan put it, "the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish Protestant Church was carried out in a masterly and sympathetic manner byWilliam Ewart Gladstone, whose known position as an enthusiastic Churchman stood him in good stead during the negotiations";[4] and theIrish Church Act 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 42), an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom enabling the disestablishment of theChurch of Ireland was passed, coming into effect on 1 January 1871.
The early 19th century sawRadicals likeJeremy Bentham formulating schemes for the disestablishment of the church, which received new impetus after the success of Catholic emancipation.[5] Following theGreat Reform Act, they were increasingly joined bydissenters andnonconformists in aLiberal campaign to disestablish the Church of England – dissenting ministers like T. Binney proclaiming that "the Established Church is a great national evil".[3]: 150
The campaigners were called "Liberationists" (the "Liberation Society" was founded byEdward Miall in 1844); and gathered strength to the point where, mid-century, Anglicans and Dissenters alike would have been astonished to learn that the church would remain established over a century later.[6] There were, however, several reasons this campaign failed: parliamentary reform of the church to make it more efficient;Whig acquiescence in a system whereby they could appointlatitudinarian bishops with liberal views; and a dissenter focus instead on a process by which nearly all of the legal disabilities of nonconformists were gradually dismantled.[3]: 152–158
The campaign for disestablishment was revived in the 20th century frominside the church, when Parliament rejected the 1929 revision of theBook of Common Prayer, leading to calls forseparation of church and state to prevent political interference in matters of worship. In the late 20th century, reform of theHouse of Lords also brought into question the position of theLords Spiritual.Nick Clegg, the formerDeputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom andLeader of the Liberal Democrats, said in April 2014 that he thought the Church of England and the British state should be separated "in the long run".[7]Prime MinisterDavid Cameron, responding to Clegg's comments, said that disestablishmentarianism is "a long-term Liberal idea, but it is not aConservative one" and that he believed having an established church works well.[7]
The triumph ofMethodism in Wales led by the 19th century to a situation where the vast majority of Protestants werenot members of the Church of England, which in turn fuelled a long and bitter struggle for disestablishment, only resolved in the wake of theWelsh Church Act 1914 when in 1920 the Church of England was disestablished in Wales, becoming theChurch in Wales.[2]: 385
Pressure to disestablish the PresbyterianChurch of Scotland began in 1832, with dissidents likeThomas Chalmers arguing that a state church tended "to secularize religion, promote hypocrisy, perpetuate error, produce infidelity, [and] destroy the unity and purity of the Church".[8] However, focus swiftly shifted to the question of lay patronagewithin the church, not its separation from the state;[3]: 165 and it was only well after the dissident split that created theFree Church of Scotland, on the grounds that "they quitted a vitiated Establishment",[9] that the Free Church joinedWilliam Ewart Gladstone in calling for the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland itself.[10]
The 20th century saw Presbyterian differences gradually diminished, and in 1929 the Free Church joined the Church of Scotland,[2]: 71 to form the largest church in Scotland, in what can be considered a form of disestablishment.[11]
InAnthony Trollope's 1858 novelDoctor Thorne, the local parson is laughingly described as well-to-do: "He's got what will buy him bread and cheese when the Rads shut up the Church – unless, indeed, they shut up the Funds too".[12] Disestablishment also features in Trollope's 1873 novel,Phineas Redux, in which a conservative leader adopts the policy, shocking his party, to outmaneuver the Liberals. Trollope undoubtedly had in mind (see chapter viii ofPhineas Redux) Disraeli's maneuver of adopting male household suffrage as Conservative party policy, leading to theSecond Reform Act of 1867.
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