Welsh Church Act 1914

The Welsh Church Act 1914[1] is an Act under which the Church of England was separated and disestablished in Wales and Monmouthshire, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales. The act had long been demanded by the Nonconformist element in Wales, which composed the majority of the population and which resented paying taxes to the Anglican Church of England. It was sponsored by the Liberal party (the stronghold of the Nonconformists) and opposed by the Conservative party (the stronghold of the Anglicans).[2]

Welsh Church Act 1914

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to terminate the establishment of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and to make provision in respect of the Temporalities thereof, and for other purposes in connection with the matters aforesaid.
Citation	1914 c. 91
Territorial extent	United Kingdom
Dates
Royal assent	18 September 1914
Commencement	31 March 1920 (see Suspensory Act 1914)
Other legislation
Amended by	Welsh Church (Temporalities) Act 1919 Welsh Church (Amendment) Act 1938 Welsh Church (Burial Grounds) Act 1945
Relates to	Irish Church Act 1869 Suspensory Act 1914
Status: Amended
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The Act, which took effect in 1920, was a controversial measure and was passed by the House of Commons under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911, which minimized the ability of the House of Lords to block it. The main financial terms were that the Church no longer receive tithe money (a land tax), but kept all its churches, properties and glebes.[3]

The Bill was politically and historically significant as one of the first pieces of legislation to apply solely to Wales (and Monmouthshire) as opposed to the wider legal entity of England and Wales.[4]

In Wales the passing of the Bill was the culmination of a long campaign which had begun in the mid-nineteenth century, led largely by Welsh Nonconformists such as Calvinistic Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, and other Protestant groups which objected to paying tithes to the Church of England. The campaign was later strongly supported by the patriotic Cymru Fydd movement.

English Catholic author G. K. Chesterton ridiculed the passion that was generated by the Bill in his poem Antichrist, or the Reunion of Christendom: An Ode, repeatedly addressing F. E. Smith, one of the chief opponents of the act.

Owing to the outbreak of the First World War in August, the Act was given Royal Assent on 18 September simultaneously with another controversial bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1914. In addition, Royal Assent was also given to the Suspensory Act 1914 which stated that the two other Acts would not come into force for the remainder of the war. On 31 March 1920 most of the Welsh part of the Church of England became the Church in Wales, an independent province of the Anglican Communion, with six dioceses led by the Archbishop of Wales. However, 19 out of 20 church parishes which spanned the Welsh/English border overwhelmingly voted in a referendum to remain within the Church of England. For example, St Stephen's Church, Old Radnor (Powys, Wales) is part of the diocese of Hereford, England.

The Welsh Church Act and the Government of Ireland Act were (together with Parliament Act 1949) the only acts enacted by invoking the Parliament Act 1911 until the War Crimes Act in 1991.[5]

An analysis published at an event in the Senedd in 2020, reflecting on 100 years of disestablishment in Wales, credited the Welsh Church Act 1914 as a critical component in the development of Wales' distinctively pluralistic and secular approaches to governance in the era of devolution.[6]