Schism Act

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Schism Act, 1714. An extreme Tory measure designed to stamp out dissent by preventing nonconformists and catholics educating their children in their own schools. Teachers (except in the universities and those who taught the young at home) had to apply for licences, which would only be granted if they had taken the Anglican sacrament within the previous year, had sworn the oaths of allegiance, abjuration, and supremacy, and had made the declaration against transubstantiation. A licensed teacher who subsequently attended non-Anglican worship was to be disqualified. On the day the Act was due to take effect, Queen Anne died, and her successor, George I, took no steps to enforce it. It was repealed in 1719.

Clyve Jones