PLACES OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP REGISTRATION BILL. (Hansard, 10 July 1855)

LORD BROUGHAM
in moving the second reading of this Bill said, that by the Toleration Act all Dissenters were exempted from the penalties to which they were subjected under former Acts on condition that their chapels should be kept open during divine service, and be duly certified and registered. In 1812 some alterations were made by Lord Sidmouth's Act, but the present Bill was rendered necessary to correct an error in the Act of 1852, carried by the then Bishop of Salisbury. The object of that Act was to render unneccessary the registry and certificate of Dissenting chapels in the Bishops' Court, the Archdeacon's Court, and the Quarter Sessions, and to transfer the certificate and registry to the Registrar General and his deputies in the provinces. But how was that object accomplished? It was a most marvellous illustration of the absolute necessity, he 658 would not say of a Minister of Justice—for he knew that was a most unpleasant doctrine—but of a Department of Justice, charged with the preparation of Acts of Parliament, for he felt assured that, had such a department existed, the error which he was about to point out to their Lordships never could have been committed. The Act declared that all registries and certificates by the bishop, the archdeacon, and the sessions should be absolutely null and void, and then it said, in lieu thereof, "Let there be a registry and certificate by the Registrar," adding, "and such certificate shall have the same force and effect with a certificate by the bishop, the archdeacon, and the sessions," of which another section of the Act had declared that it was null and void. It turned out that under this Act no less than 6,516 Dissenting chapels had been registered and certified by certificates declared to be null and void, so that all the original penalties were revived against every one of these Dissenting chapels. It might be said the penalties were not in force; but, even admitting that they were harmless, this took place. Under the Act passed in 1836, with respect to civil marriages and marriages in Dissenting chapels, a marriage in a Dissenting chapel was only valid and the issue of that marriage legitimate, when the chapel was licensed; but it could not be licensed unless certified to have been registered, so that every one of these 6,516 chapels were prevented from being legally licensed for the solemnisation of marriages. But several hundreds, and, probably, all of those chapels had been licensed, and the marriages that had taken place in them were null and void—as null and void as the certificates. He must say that, so far as he knew anything of the feeling of Dissenters, they were not at all satisfied with the existing law, or with the law as it would be amended by this Bill, for they could see no reason why certificates should be required in order to exempt them from the penalties of that barbarous code of which at least a remnant unhappily still remained in force. To say that they would bear with Dissenters for doing that which they had as good a right to do as Churchmen, was utterly absurd and inconsistent with the principle upon which they professed to be dealing with Dissenters. They might as well talk of tolerating him in walking across the street, or in entering and leaving his house when he chose, as of suffering a man to worship according to his conscientious 659 convictions. He wished to protest against the views which were entertained on this subject in some quarters, and he begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, that undoubtedly the Bill was an exceedingly proper one, and would remedy a great misfortune if in truth marriages in chapels, licensed under the recent Act, were of doubtful validity, in consequence of the defect in the certificate which his noble Friend's construction of the Act would imply. In looking over the Bill, he doubted whether the construction of his noble and learned Friend was correct, for he thought the clause only meant that the certificate should be equal in force with those which used to be granted by the bishop before the passing of the Act of 1852. If, however, there was any doubt on the subject, the Bill ought to pass into law. With regard to what his noble and learned Friend had said on the subject of toleration, he entirely agreed with him, but as regarded registration of chapels, he must insist upon the imperative necessity that those places of worship in which marriages were celebrated should be certain and known; otherwise we might have a similar laxity with regard to marriages as prevailed in Scotland, and that could only be prevented by the registration of places where marriages were solemnized.

LORD BROUGHAM
said, it must not be supposed that he did not wish places to be registered where marriages took place. His opinion on that point was quite the reverse.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL
said, he hoped when the Bill of the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) came on, there would be no attempt to confound it with the present Bill, for the two Bills were quite distinct.

§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
said, that Dissenters as well as churchmen were affected by the penalty which his Bill proposed to remove, and they equally desired its removal.