| Act of Parliament | |
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| Long title | An Act to relieve Persons who impugn the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity from certain Penalties. |
|---|---|
| Citation | 53 Geo. 3. c. 160 |
| Introduced by | William Smith[1] (Commons) |
| Territorial extent | United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 21 July 1813 |
| Repealed | 5 August 1873 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1873 |
| Relates to | |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The Act 53 Geo. 3. c. 160, sometimes called the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813,[2] the Trinitarian Act 1812,[3] the Unitarian Relief Act,[4] the Trinity Act, the Unitarian Toleration Bill, or Mr William Smith's Bill (after Whig politician William Smith),[5] was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which amended its blasphemy laws and granted toleration for Unitarian worship.[6]
- Section 1 amended the Toleration Act 1689 (passed by the Parliament of England) to include non-Trinitarians among the Protestant dissenters whose practices would be tolerated.
- Section 2 repealed the provision of the Blasphemy Act 1697 (also English) which imposed civil penalties on anyone professed or educated as a Christian who denied the Trinity.
- Section 3 repealed two Acts of the Scottish Parliament which made blasphemy punishable by death: the Act against Blasphemy 1661 and Act against Blasphemy 1695.
The Dissenters (Ireland) Act 1817 (57 Geo 3 c 70) extended the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813 to Ireland, and amended the Prohibition of Disturbance of Worship Act 1719 (passed by the Parliament of Ireland)[7] in the same way as the 1813 Act had amended the 1689 Act.[8]
The Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813 was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1873.[9]
Notes
- ↑ Hansard HC 5 May 1813 s1 v5 c1147
- ↑ Walker. A Legal History of Scotland. 1988. Volume 6. p 409.
- ↑ Krueger. "Clerical". Tucker (ed). A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2014. p 141.
- ↑ Amherst D Tyssen. The Law of Charitable Bequests. 1888. p 104.
- ↑ Maclear J.F., Church and State in the Modern Age: a documentary history 1995
- ↑ Dudley Julius Medley, A Student's Manual of English Constitutional History. Sixth Edition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1925), p. 653.
- ↑ An act for exempting the protestant dissenters of this kingdom from certain penalties, to which they are now subject
- ↑ An Act to relieve persons impugning the doctrine of the Holy Trinity from certain penalties, in Ireland
- ↑ Statute Law Revision Act 1873, Schedule