Disestablishment
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Disestablishment. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in modern politics, the separation of church and state, or, to be particular, the withdrawal of state support from a church that has long enjoyed an income from public taxation. It is not inaccurate to say that an established church is characteristic of states having a dominant religious body. In Mohammedan countries mosques are maintained at public expense. In Russia the Greek Orthodox church is supported by the state. Catholic countries, usually, but not always, maintain a state church. France, Brazil, and Mexico may be named as notable exceptions. The Lutheran states of North Europe support the Lutheran religion. Scotland maintains the United Presbyterians, largely at public expense, and leaves other denominations to provide for their own support. England takes care of an established church, the Protestant Episcopal, or Church of England, in similar fashion. The established church of England is also the established church of Wales, although the majority of the people belong to other churches. There are no established churches in North America , save in some of the small states south of Mexico. There are no established churches in New Zealand or in the Commonwealth of Australia. The Catholic church was disestablished in Brazil in 1889, in France in 1905. A fight for the disestablishment of the Protestant Episcopal church in Ireland is one of the longest parliamentary contests on record. Although the population of Ireland was overwhelmingly Catholic, the English authorities divided the island into parishes, and forced the populace to pay of their poverty for the support of a Church of England clergy. After centuries of occupation the Church of England, or the Established Church of Ireland, as it was known officially, included but thirteen per cent of the population in its fold. This Irish Church, which was never Irish, was disestablished by act of Parliament in 1869, when William Gladstone was prime minister.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the act of cease to be established ; causing to specifically a depriving a Church of its tablished Church; to withdraw a Church theory from its connection with the state. A bill for the purpose described was introduced into the British House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone on March 1, 1869. The second reading was carried the mucous membrane of the throat are destroyed, while in typhoid fever the intestinal ulcers are caused by the action of the typhoid bacillus. Other groups of bacteria result in the production of certain poisons which are distributed through the body by the circulation of the blood resulting in prostration and fever. While in regard to certain maladies the germ theory of their origin still on the 24th by 368 to 250 votes, and the third on May 31, by 361 to 247. The first reading took place in the House of Lords on the motion of Earl Granville, on June 1, 1869 , and after several vicissitudes and some modifications the bill was accorded by the Commons. It received the royal assent on July 26, 1869, but it was provided that it should not take effect till Jan. 1, 1871, which, therefore, is the proper date of the disestablishment of the Irish Church. In 1914 an act providing ing for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England in Wales was passed by Parliament, but its enforcement was postponed until after the World War.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's noted in 1921 that the Welsh Church Act of 1914 had been passed but suspended for the war; it in fact came into force on 31 March 1920, and the Church in Wales became a self-governing disestablished province of the Anglican Communion, leaving the Church of England as the only established church remaining in the United Kingdom. Aiton's 1910 survey of state churches has been overtaken almost everywhere it looks: the Bolsheviks stripped the Russian Orthodox Church of its state standing in 1918, the Ottoman caliphate was abolished in 1924 and Turkey made secular, and the Lutheran churches of northern Europe have loosened or cut the tie, Sweden's separating from the state in 2000. Aiton's account of Scotland is also misleading even for its date: the established Church of Scotland was Presbyterian but not the United Presbyterians, and the Church of Scotland Act 1921 recognised its full spiritual independence of Parliament, clearing the way for the 1929 reunion. The Irish story the two entries dwell on is now closed history, and disestablishment as a live parliamentary battle has given way to arguments about bishops in the House of Lords and religion in schools.
Written for this edition, 2026.