No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Bishops and the Jews, 1828-1858
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Between 1830 and 1858 fourteen separate attempts were made to remove the legal disabilities which prevented Jews from sitting in Parliament. The first bill was dismissed by the unreformed House of Commons, and the next twelve, from 1833 onwards, were rejected by the Lords after being passed by the Commons. It was only the fourteenth attempt, a carefully constructed compromise between leading members of both Houses, which finally was to prove acceptable. The struggle for parliamentary representation became the longest and most bitter battle which the Anglo-Jewish community had to wage with the Christian Establishment during the nineteenth century. After the election of Lionel Nathan Rothschild as Member of Parliament for the City of London in 1847, the campaign became one of constitutional urgency, and not merely of hypothetical significance. Rothschild was re-elected with an increased majority in 1849, and returned again in 1852 and twice in 1857. In 1851 he was joined in the shadows of Westminster by David Salomons, when Salomons won a seat at Greenwich. The electorate, even in places such as Greenwich, which lacked a significant Jewish population, had apparently delivered its own verdict on the suitability of Jews being admitted to the legislature.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1992
References
1 Salbstein, M. C. N., The Emancipation of the Jews in Britain (London and Toronto, 1982), p. 57.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., p. 144.
3 Ibid., p. 179.
4 For the fullest account, see Salbstein, , Emancipation, pp. 113–43.Google Scholar Shorter accounts are to be found in U. R. Q. Henriques, The Jewish emancipation controversy in nineteenth century Britain’, PaP, 40 (1068), pp. 126-46; Israel Finestein, ‘Anglo-Jewish opinion during the struggle for emancipation’, TJHSE, 20 (1959-61); Polly Pinkser, ‘English Opinion and Jewish Emancipation’, Jewish Social Studies, 13-14 (1951-2), pp. 51-94; Geoffrey Alderman, The jewish Community in British Politics (Oxford, 1983), pp. 14-30.
5 Salbstein, Emancipation, p. 59; Hansard, ns, 18, 21 Apr. 1828, cols 1591-2, 1609; ns, 19, 28 Apr. 1828, col. 159 Journal of the House of Lords, 60, 25 Apr. 1828, p. 247.
6 Salbstein, Emancipation, p. 71.
7 Hansard, ser. 3, 20, 1 Aug. 1833, col. 226.
8 Ibid., col. 238.
9 Ibid., col. 225.
10 Hansard, ser. 3, 24, 23 June 1834, col. 725.
11 Hansard, ser. 3, 20, 1 Aug. 1833, col. 237.
12 Ibid., col. 226.
13 Ibid., col. 238.
14 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1350.
15 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1351.
16 Salbstein, Emancipation, p. 161.
17 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, col. 889. For Sumner’s final speech on Jewish emancipation, see Hansard, ser. 3, 146, 10 July 1857, cols 1259-60.
18 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, col. 890.
19 Ibid., col. 889.
20 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1378.
21 Henriques, , ‘Jewish emancipation controversy’, p. 137.Google Scholar
22 Jewish Chronicle, 25 June 1847. See also 11 June 1847 and Henriques, Jewish emancipation controversy’, p. 138.
23 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, col. 914.
24 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1269. See also ibid. 106, 26 June 1849, col. 911, and 126, 10 July, col. 1269.
25 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1374.
26 Ibid., col. 1375. In fact, as Geoffrey Alderman has shown, it was Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the father of the first Jewish MP, who made available the bullion needed to enable the payment of Wellington’s forces in Spain. See Alderman, Jewish Community, p. 10.
27 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, cols 911-12.
28 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1375.
29 Salbstein, Emancipation, p. 78.
30 For Crooll, see ibid., pp. 78-85.
31 Between 1812 and 1829 Crooll wrote three books devoted to stating the ultra-Orthodox case against emancipation: The Restoration of Israel, The Fifth Empire, and The Last Generation: see Salbstein, Emancipation, pp. 80-1.
32 CUL, C.U.R. 39.17.
33 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1375.
34 Ashwell, A. R. and Wilberforce, R. G., Life of Samuel Wilberforce D.D. 3 vols (London, 1880)Google Scholar; Meacham, S., Lord Bishop: The Life of Samuel Wilberforce 1805-1873 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35 Meacham, , Lord Bishop, pp. 271–2.Google Scholar
36 Whately, E. J., Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately D.D., 2 vols (London, 1866), 1, pp. 383–5, 405–7.Google Scholar
37 Copleston had been Whately’s tutor at Oriel College, Oxford, between 1805 and 1808. According to his biographer, the influence which the two men exercised on each other coloured the subsequent lives of both. See Whately, Richard Whately, 1, pp. 12-14 for an account of their friendship.
38 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, col. 891.
39 Hansard, ser. 3, 126, 29 Apr. 1853, col. 772.
40 Hansard, ser. 3, 20, 1 Aug. 1833, col. 234.
41 Ibid., col. 228.
42 Ibid., col. 230.
43 Hansard, ser. 3, 118, 17 July 1851, cols 880-1.
44 Whately, , Richard Whately, 2, pp. 148–51.Google Scholar
45 Hansard, ser. 3, 106, 26 June 1849, col. 892.
46 Hansard, ser. 3, 20, 1 Aug. 1833, col. 231.
47 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1360.
48 Ibid., col. 1361.
49 Ibid., cols 1379-80, 1384.
50 Ibid., cols 1362-3.
51 Hansard, ser. 3, 126, 29 Apr. 1853, col. 782.
52 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, cols 1364, 1359.
53 Salbstein, Emancipation, p. 38.
54 Hansard, ser. 3, 146, 10 June 1857, col. 1257.
55 Ibid., col. 1258.
56 Ibid., col. 1259.
57 Machin, G. I. T., Politics and the Churches in Great Britain 1832 to 1868 (Oxford, 1977), p. 292.Google Scholar
58 Hansard, ser. 3, 98, 25 May 1848, col. 1380.
59 Hansard, ser. 3, 126, 29 Apr. 1853, col. 781.