Welsh Journals

which included a provision that the doors of their meeting-houses should not be locked or barred.1 However, not the least significant implication of the Toleration Act was that it cut across the principle of Anglican uniformity; and thereafter it was only a matter of time before the principle of toleration was fully admitted. Roman Catholic Emancipation was finally realised in the year 1829, but the disa- bilities relating to Jews were not removed until Queen Victoria's reign was far advanced. The two relief acts under which the petitions summarised below were made were (1) the Toleration Act of 1689 (1 William and Mary, c. 18), entitled 'An Act for exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Laws', and (2) an Act passed 1812 July 9 (52 George III, c. 155), entitled 'An Act to repeal certain Acts and amend other Acts relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preach- ing therein'. Those portions of both acts which are relevant to our purpose are printed below: (1) (a) 'That if any Assembly of Persons dissenting from the Church of England shall be had in any Place for religious Worship with the Doors locked, barred, or bolted, during any Time of such meeting together, all and every Person or Persons, that shall come to and be at such meeting, shall not receive any Benefit from this Law (b) 'That no Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship shall be permitted or allowed by this Act, until the Place of such meeting shall be certified to the Bishop of the Diocese, or to the Archdeacon of that Archdeaconry, or to the Justices of the Peace at the General or Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the County, City, or Place in which such meet- ing shall be held, and registered in the said Bishop's or Archdeacon's Court respectively, or recorded at the said General or Quarter Sessions; the Register or Clerk of the Peace whereof respectively is hereby required to register the same, and to give Certificate thereof to such Person as shall demand the same, for which there shall be no greater Fee nor Reward taken, then the Sum of six Pence'. (2) And from and after the passing of this Act no congregation or assembly for religious worship of protestants (at which there shall be present more than twenty persons besides the immediate family and servants of the person in whose house or upon whose premises such meeting, congregation, or assembly shall be had) shall be permitted or allowed, unless and until the place of such meeting, if the same shall shall not have been duly certified and registered under any former Act or Acts of Parliament relating to registering places of religious worship, 1 Charles 11's Declaration of Indulgence (1672 Mar. 15) had provided that Nonconformists (but not Roman Catholics) could meet for public worship in meeting-places which had first been approved by the Crown; and three thousand five hundred licences for such meeting-places had been issued within ten months (see R. W. Dale, History of English Congregationalism, p. 437). But the privilege was shortlived, and in 1673 the king was com- pelled to withdraw his Declaration as being unconstitutional.