In English church history, a Nonconformist is a Protestant Christian who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church, the Church of England. Use of the term in England was precipitated after the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed the opponents of reform within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians, plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists and Quakers. The English Dissenters such as the Puritans who violated the Act of Uniformity 1559 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists.
A civil marriage is a marriage performed, recorded and recognised by a government official. Such a marriage may be performed by a religious body and recognised by the state, or it may be entirely secular.
The Church in Wales is the Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.
A marriage license is a document issued, either by a religious organization or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a license varies between jurisdictions, and has changed over time. Marriage licenses began to be issued in the Middle Ages, to permit a marriage which would otherwise be illegal.
Vital statistics is accumulated data gathered on live births, deaths, migration, fetal deaths, marriages and divorces. The most common way of collecting information on these events is through civil registration, an administrative system used by governments to record vital events which occur in their populations. Efforts to improve the quality of vital statistics will therefore be closely related to the development of civil registration systems in countries. Civil registration followed the practice of churches keeping such records since the 19th century.
Welsh Newton is a small village and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England. It is located close to the border with Wales to which the parish extends towards Monmouthshire. It should not be confused with Newton, a township-chapelry in Clodock Parish and near Longtown, or with Newton Leominister.
The General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) is the section of the United Kingdom HM Passport Office responsible for the civil registration of births, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outside the UK if they involve a UK citizen and qualify to be registered in various miscellaneous registers. With a small number of historic exceptions involving military personnel, it does not deal with records of such events occurring within the land or territorial waters of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland; those entities' registration systems have always been separate from England and Wales.
A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms, marriages, children, and burials are recorded. Along with these vital details, church goods, the parish’s response to briefs, and notes on various happenings in the parish were also recorded. These elaborate records existed for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage.
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different US states. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.
Marriage is available in England and Wales to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples and is legally recognised in the forms of both civil and religious marriage. Marriage laws have historically evolved separately from marriage laws in other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. There is a distinction between religious marriages, conducted by an authorised religious celebrant and civil marriages conducted by a state registrar. The legal minimum age to enter into a marriage in England and Wales is sixteen years, although this requires consent of parents and guardians if a participant is under eighteen. Certain relatives are not allowed to marry. For foreign nationals, there are also residency conditions that have to be met before people can be married. Same-sex marriage was introduced under the Marriage Act in March 2014.
A marriage certificate is an official statement that two people are married. In most jurisdictions, a marriage certificate is issued by a government official only after the civil registration of the marriage.
The Upper Brook Street Chapel, also known as the Islamic Academy, the Unitarian Chapel and the Welsh Baptist Chapel, is a former chapel with an attached Sunday School on the east side of Upper Brook Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Greater Manchester, England. It is said to be the first neogothic Nonconformist chapel, having been constructed for the British Unitarians between 1837 and 1839, at the very beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria. It was designed by Sir Charles Barry, later architect of the Palace of Westminster.
The Act for Marriages in England 1836, 6 & 7 Wm IV, c. 85 was an Act that legalised civil marriage in England and Wales from 1 January 1837.
Ditchling Unitarian Chapel is a Unitarian chapel in Ditchling, a village in the English county of East Sussex. A congregation of General Baptists began to meet in the 17th century in the village, which was a local centre for Protestant Nonconformist worship, and by the time the present simple Vernacular-style chapel was constructed in 1740 a large proportion of the population held Baptist beliefs. Along with other General Baptist chapels in Sussex, the congregation moved towards Unitarian views in the mid-18th century; this caused a schism which resulted in a new chapel being formed at nearby Wivelsfield. The character of the Ditchling chapel was wholly Unitarian by 1800, and it has continued under various names since then. People associated with the chapel include William Hale White, Henry Acton, Adrian Boult—who was married there—and G. K. Chesterton. The chapel is set back from Ditchling's main street and has an adjoining house and graveyard, all of which contribute to the character of the conservation area which covers the centre of Ditchling village. English Heritage has listed the chapel at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Zoar Strict Baptist Chapel is a Strict Baptist place of worship in the hamlet of Lower Dicker in the English county of East Sussex. Founded in 1837 and originally known as The Dicker Chapel, the "large and impressive" Classical/Georgian-style building stands back from a main road in a rural part of East Sussex. The 800-capacity building included a schoolroom and stables when built, and various links exist between people and pastors associated with the chapel and other Strict Baptist and Calvinistic causes in the county, which is "particularly well endowed with [such] chapels".
The Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which governs the registration and legal recognition of places of worship. It applies only in England and Wales, and does not cover the Church of England which is exempt from the Act's requirements. Nor does it affect the Church in Wales, which remains part of the Anglican Communion although it is no longer the Established Church in Wales. Registration is not compulsory, but it gives certain financial advantages and is also required before a place of worship can be registered as a venue for marriages.
Meadrow Unitarian Chapel is a Unitarian chapel in the Farncombe area of Godalming, Surrey, England. It is part of the London District and South Eastern Provincial Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, one of 16 districts within the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarians.
Godalming Friends Meeting House is a Friends meeting house in the ancient town of Godalming in the English county of Surrey. One of many Nonconformist places of worship in the town, it dates from 1748 but houses a congregation whose roots go back nearly a century earlier. Decline set in during the 19th century and the meeting house passed out of Quaker use for nearly 60 years, but in 1926 the cause was reactivated and since then an unbroken history of Quaker worship has been maintained. Many improvements were carried out in the 20th century to the simple brick-built meeting house, which is Grade II-listed in view of its architectural and historical importance.
The Welsh Church Commissioners were set up by the Welsh Church Act 1914 to deal with the disendowment of the Church of England in Wales, as part of its disestablishment. Their task was to ascertain which ecclesiastical assets the future Church in Wales should retain, and which should be transferred to local authorities, and to various Welsh national institutions. They were required to transfer those assets which the Church in Wales was entitled to retain to the Representative Body of the Church in Wales. The remaining assets were to be transferred to the thirteen County Councils and four County Borough Councils which existed in Wales until 1974, and to the University of Wales and its constituent colleges. For various reasons which are explained below, the process took considerably longer than was first envisaged. The Commissioners could not ultimately be wound up until 1947. The assets transferred constituted the "Welsh Church Act Funds" of the respective institutions. The County and County Borough Councils hold the funds for charitable and other purposes. The funds are still in existence. As part of their responsibilities, the Welsh Church Commissioners also organised the border polls which were held in 1915 in parishes which straddled the administrative border between England and Wales.