Dissenters Chapels Act

Dissenters Chapels Act (7 & 8 Vict. c. 45), (statutory title, 'The (English) Nonconformist Chapels Act, 1844'), an Act passed in 1844 for the relief of Unitarians, though it applies to Nonconformists of every description. Its effect is to exclude, by a special law of limitation made for that express purpose, all inquiry into the conformity or otherwise of the doctrines taught or ritual practised in any chapel or meeting-house of any Non-conformist body, or the intentions of the founders by whom the building or its accessories or endowments were given, when such doctrines have been taught there, or such ritual practised, for the last twenty-five years; unless they are, in express terms, prohibited or excluded by some written instrument governing the foundation. The Act was passed inconsequence of the decision in what is commonly known as 'Lady Hewley's Case', Shore v. Wilson, (1842) 9 Cl&F 355, in which it was held by the House of Lords that Unitarian congregations, inspite of long and undisturbed possession, were not entitled to retain chapels and meeting-houses originally founded under Trinitarian Nonconformist trust deeds dated prior to 1813, when the benefit of the Toleration Act was first extended to Unitarians by the Act (53 Geo. 3, c. 160); see Lord Selborne's Defence of the Church of England against Disestablishment, 5th Edn., p. 218