General Register Office: Places of Religious Worship Certifying Act 1852: Returns

RG 31

1689-1852

Returns made by clerks of county and borough quarter sessions and registrars of dioceses and archdeaconries in response to a letter of the Registrar General, dated 29 June 1852, sent pursuant to the Protestant Dissenters Act 1852. They list places of worship of protestant dissenters registered since 1689, and of Roman Catholics, registered since 1791.

The returns were made on a standard form divided into nine columns for: a serial number, name or description of the place of worship, parish or place, county, religious denomination, and the name, residence and rank or profession of the certifying person, and date of registry. Not all of the columns were always completed. The entries on the forms were arranged in chronological order of registration. The returns were subsequently bound alphabetically by Diocesan Courts in the first five volumes, and again by Counties, Cities and Boroughs for the Quarter Sessions in the next three volumes. The ninth and tenth volumes comprising nil returns were also arranged alphabetically, and the final volume contains a copy of the 1852 Act with explanatory statements respecting the returns.

Public Record(s)

English

11 volume(s)

Topics

Religions

Census

The Toleration Act of 1689 required Protestant Dissenting congregations to register their meeting places with the Clerk of the Peace or with the appropriate Bishop or Archdeacon. Similar provision in respect of Roman Catholic Chapels was made in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791.

The Protestant Dissenters Act of 1852 amended the law relating to the certifying and registering of places of religious worship of protestant dissenters by requiring that the certification of such meeting places be made exclusively to the Registrar General and recorded in the General Register Office. The Act also required that the Registrar of every Bishop and Archdeacon and that every Clerk of the Peace should, within three months after the passing of the Act, make a return to the Registrar General of all places of meeting, which up to the date of this Act, had been certified to and registered in the Court of the Bishop or Archdeacon respectively, or had been certified to the Justices of the Peace, or recorded at Quarter Sessions.

Accordingly on the 29 June 1852 the Registrar General wrote to the Clerks of County and Borough Quarter Sessions, and the Registrars of Dioceses and Archdeaconries requesting the return as above, including Roman Catholic Chapels registered under the Act of 1791.