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LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP ACT 1855
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C A P. LXXXVI.
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An Act for securing the Liberty of Religious Worship. [14th August 1855.]
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1 W. & M. Sess. 1. c. 18.
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52 G. 3. c. 155.
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‘Whereas it is expedient that the Laws affecting Assemblies for Religious Worship should be amended: And whereas by an Act passed in the First Year of King William and Queen Mary, intituled An Act for exempting Their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws, it is enacted that no Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship shall be permitted or allowed until the Place of such Meeting shall be certified and registered or recorded as described in such Act: And whereas by an Act passed in the Fifty-second Year of King George the Third, Chapter One hundred and fifty-five, intituled An Act to repeal certain Acts, and to amend other Acts, relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preaching therein, it is enacted that no Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship of Protestants (at which there shall be present more than Twenty Persons, besides the immediate Family and Servants of the Person in whose House or upon whose Premises such Meeting, Congregation, or Assembly shall be had,) shall be permitted or allowed unless the Place of such Meeting is certified as described in such Act, and that every Person who shall knowingly permit or suffer any such Congregation or Assembly as aforesaid to meet in any Place occupied by him, until the same shall have been so certified, shall forfeit for every Time any such Congregation or Assembly shall meet a Sum not exceeding Twenty Pounds nor less than Twenty Shillings, at the Discretion of the Justices who shall convict for such Offence:’ Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, as follows:
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No Prosecution to be maintainable for assembling for Religious Worship in a Place of Meeting not certified.
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I. From and after the passing of this Act, nothing contained in the above-mentioned Acts, or in an Act passed in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Years of the Reign of Her Majesty, Chapter Thirty-six, shall apply to the Congregations or Assemblies herein-after mentioned, or any of them; that is to say,
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(1.) To any Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship held in any Parish or any Ecclesiastical District, and conducted by the Incumbent, or in case the Incumbent is not resident, by the Curate of such Parish or District, or by any Person authorized by them respectively:
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(2.) To any Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship meeting in a private Dwelling House or on the Premises belonging thereto:
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(3.) To any Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship meeting occasionally in any Building or Buildings not usually appropriated to Purposes of Religious Worship;
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And no Person permitting any such Congregation to meet as herein mentioned in any Place occupied by him shall be liable to any Penalty for so doing.
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Construction of certain Parts of 2 & 3 W. 4. c. 115. and 9 & 10 Vict. c. 59. as to Places of Worship of Roman Catholics and Jews.
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II. So much of an Act passed in the Second and Third Years of King William the Fourth, Chapter One hundred and fifteen, as enacts that Her Majesty’s Subjects professing the Roman Catholic Religion, in respect to their Places for Religious Worship, shall be subject to the same Laws as the Protestant Dissenters are subject to, and so much of an Act passed in the Ninth and Tenth Year of Her present Majesty, Chapter Fifty-nine, as enacts that Her Majesty’s Subjects professing the Jewish Religion, in respect to their Places for Religious Worship, shall be subject to the same Laws as Protestant Dissenters are subject to, shall be respectively read as applicable to the Laws to which Protestant Dissenters in England are subject for the Time being after the passing of this Act.
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