1974/04/01 by Olive Anderson · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Scottish History and National Identity #Australian History and Society
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022046900045735
openalex publication_date 1974/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
There are four major interpretative themes in historical writing about nineteenth century English politics whose exposition has customarily involved a bald allusion to Gladstone's abolition of compulsory church rates in 1868. In reality the facts do not justify any of these familiar uses. What follows is intended not only to demonstrate that this is so by briefly describing ‘how it really happened’, but also to consider how it has come about that this legislation has been so often pressed into service in inappropriate contexts ever since it was passed, and to speculate a little upon this as part of the general problem of the delays and paradoxes in the development of historical writing on nineteenth-century England.