Nonconformists were Protestant Christians who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the state church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England.
The Conventicle Act 1664 was an Act of the Parliament of England that forbade conventicles, defined as religious assemblies of more than five people other than an immediate family, outside the auspices of the Church of England and the rubrics of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
The Five Mile Act, or Oxford Act, or Nonconformists Act 1665, was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed in 1665 with the long title "An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations". It was one of the English penal laws that sought to enforce conformity to the established Church of England, and to expel any who did not conform. It forbade clergymen from living, visiting or preaching within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been expelled, or to come within five miles of any city, town or borough that sends Members to Parliament unless they swore an oath never to resist the king, or attempt to alter the government of Church or State. The latter involved swearing to obey the 1662 prayer book. Thousands of ministers were deprived of a living under this act.
In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to enforce the State-decreed religious monopoly of the Church of England and, following the 1688 revolution, of Presbyterianism in Scotland, against the continued existence of illegal and underground communities of Catholics, nonjuring Anglicans, and Protestant nonconformists. The Penal laws also imposed various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon recusants from mandatory attendance at weekly Sunday services of the Established Church. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th-century due to the successful activism of Daniel O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.
Over the course of English parliamentary history there were a number of Acts of Uniformity. All had the basic object of establishing some sort of religious orthodoxy within the Church of England.
The Act of Uniformity 1548, the Act of Uniformity 1549, the Uniformity Act 1548, or the Act of Equality was an act of the Parliament of England, passed on 21 January 1549.
Rev. John Wesley (1636–78) was an English nonconformist minister. He was the grandfather of John Wesley.
The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England following the Restoration of Charles II. It was a consequence of the Savoy Conference of 1661.
Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman and historian.
A conventicle originally meant "an assembly" and was frequently used by ancient writers to mean "a church." At a semantic level, conventicle is a Latinized synonym of the Greek word for church, and references Jesus' promise in Matthew 18:20, "Where two or three are met together in my name."
Oliver Heywood (1630–1702) was a British nonconformist minister, ejected for his beliefs.
Thomas Jollie (1629–1703) was an English Dissenter, a minister ejected from the Church of England for his beliefs.
Richard Gilpin was an English nonconformist minister and physician, prominent in the northern region.
From 1649 to 1660, Puritans in the Commonwealth of England were allied to the state power held by the military regime, headed by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell until he died in 1658. They broke into numerous sects, of which the Presbyterian group comprised most of the clergy, but was deficient in political power since Cromwell's sympathies were with the Independents. During this period, the term "Puritan" becomes largely moot, therefore, in British terms, though the situation in New England was very different. After the English Restoration, the Savoy Conference and Uniformity Act 1662 and Great Ejection drove most of the Puritan ministers from the Church of England, and the outlines of the Puritan movement changed over a few decades into the collections of Presbyterian and Congregational churches, operating as they could as Dissenters under changing regimes.
Reverend Thomas Risley was an English Presbyterian minister, founder of the Thomas Risley Chapel.
William Aspinwall, was a nonconformist English minister.
Samuel Mather (1626–1671) was an Independent minister. Born in England, he went with his family while still young to New England. He returned to England under the Commonwealth, went to Scotland after a period at Oxford, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. After 1662 he was a nonconformist minister in Ireland.
John Jackson (c.1621–1693) was an English nonconformist minister. Intruded as a fellow during the Parliamentary visitation of the University of Cambridge, he was expelled in 1650 as a result of the engagement controversy, and was an ejected minister of 1662.
Ichabod Chaunc(e)y, (1635–1691) was an English physician and nonconformist divine. He was an army chaplain at Dunkirk before 1660, beneficed in Bristol, ejected from his living for nonconformity in 1662, and practised medicine at Bristol from 1662 to 1684. He was banished from England for nonconformity and other offences in 1684, and returned to Bristol in 1686.
