Here is some newspaper coverage from the later years of the “passive resistance” movement against the Education Act.
From the Yorkshire Evening Post:
The Monotony of It.
Mr. Percy Webb, a passive resister, of Crouch End, has been committed to
prison for one day at Highgate.
“It is no pleasure for me to go to prison,” he told the magistrates. “I’m
heartily sick of it. This will make the fifth time.”
From the Derby Daily Telegraph:
Passive Resistance to Go On.
Letter From Dr.
Clifford.
Dr. Clifford, in a written
statement, repeats what he said before the Paddington magistrates recently as
to the new position created by the recognition by Church leaders in the recent
compromise negotiations of the principle for which passive resisters fought,
that denominational teaching should be taken off the rates. He concludes:–
Passive resistance will go forward; but I am asked, Ought we not to begin to
organise the movement on a larger scale? Should not the leagues federate?
Hitherto the movement has been spontaneous. Ought we to be content with that?
Least of all, are we ready to listen to those who say, “You endure the wrong
of supporting sectarian teaching through the taxes; what folly to suffer the
distraint of your goods and the imprisonment of your persons when the wrong
is perpetrated through the rates?” According to that reasoning our fathers
ought not to have attempted to deliver the country from the “old Church rate”
whilst they allowed the Establishment, a much greater wrong in their
judgment, to continue. Nor should they have battled to get rid of
“ecclesiastical tests” for municipal offices while similar barriers kept the
doors of the Universities locked. And so on with our vicious land system and
our tettering feudal aristocracy and many other evils. Everything cannot be
done at once. The immediate task of the passive resister is clearly that of
fighting on with increased determination and, if possible, with increased
numbers, so that we may achieve the removal of Romanism and Anglicanism and
eccleciasticisms of every kind off the rates.
From the Cambridge Independent Press (excerpts):
Passive Resistance.
The following manifesto of the National Passive Resistance League has been
issued:–
It is fully manifest that there is not the slightest chance of any relief to
passive resisters in the present Parliament.
The oppression of the conscience by the Education Act of
not only continues, but increases year by
year. The injustice grows.…
One thing is patent. It is the House of Peers and Bishops which prevents the
amendment of the education laws, the repair of injustice, and the restoration
of peace to the aggrieved conscience. The House of Commons would have carried
out the mandate of the people had it not been for the veto of that Assembly.
Therefore we must concentrate all our energy on the destruction of that veto.
We are not free men while it lasts. Our electoral impotence is degrading to
us so long as we permit that usurpation. To get rid of it is the foremost
duty we owe to the children, and to the citizens of Great Britain, to
education, to temperance, to justice, to freedom, to social reform, and to
religious equality, and God helping us we will pay that debt to the uttermost
farthing.
And since a general election may occur very speedily it is necessary that we
should prepare our forces for action forthwith.
John Clifford, President.
James Everett, Hon. Secretary.
Memorial Hall, E.C.,
.
From the London Daily News (excerpts):
Prison Preferred.
Dr. Clifford and Passive Resistance.
Twenty-eight Paddington Passive Resisters, headed by Dr. J. Clifford, appeared at the Town Hall… for non-payment of the local rate, to the sectarian portion of which they objected.
Dr. Clifford referred to the four methods recommended by the National Passive Resistance League, and said commitment to prison would be adopted if the bench would only send him to gaol instead of distraining on Mrs. Clifford’s goods.
Alderman W. Urquhart: We should be sorry to see you in prison, Dr. Clifford
Some of the defaulters protested and paid, and others elected to have their goods seized.
From the Portsmouth, Ohio Daily Times (among others), :
Refuses to Pay Tax to England
(By Associated Press.) London, Eng. . — John Clifford, the non-conformist minister, who was a delegate to the recent Lake Mohonk Conference, has again refused to pay the sectarian state education tax. Dr. Clifford, who is at present in Canada, has written to the authorities saying that they can either distrain his goods or arrange to imprison him on his return to England. He concludes his letter, which was written at Lake Mohonk, by saying:
I write this letter in a country where the sectarian legislation against which we are protesting is regarded with amazement and indignation. They have none of it. The United States owes their origin to men driven out of England by religious persecution. We are bound to do all we can to drive religious persecution out of England.
From the Bath Chronicle (excerpts):
Passive Resistance
Bath Protesters in Court
Mr. G.J. Long Raises a Point of Procedure.
Some added interest was given to the proceedings against the Bath Passive
Resisters who, to the number of 42, were summoned at the Bath City Police
Court on for non-payment of the
portion of the half-year’s rate which they regarded as devoted to educational
purposes, by the fact that Mr. Councillor G.J. Long, who again acted as the
spokesman, raised a question bearing on the procedure usually adopted by the
Court, as soon as the magistrates had proceeded to the hearing of the
summonses.
The number of defendants summoned was rather smaller than that recorded on
some previous occasions.…
Mr. Long craved leave to make a statement before the business of the Court
was allowed to proceed. He understood that in the north of England people who
were summoned in this way had been allowed the opportunity of having a few
minutes to state their case. At Newcastle, where this had been refused, they
had engaged a solicitor, who had proved each case separately, and had occupied
the Court for 2½ hours. He claimed that the defendants in that Court were
entitled to one or the other alternative. If the Bench would allow them
severally and individually a minute or two in which to state their case, it
would be much quicker, and much more orderly.
The Mayor observed that to hear the cases separately would considerably
increase the costs. It would mean an additional
3s. on each summons.
Mr. Long rejoined that if the Bench refused to allow the defendants to speak,
they would have to re-consider their position, and engage a solicitor. It was
not a question of money — that was no object to the people engaged in this
movement.
The Mayor: Do I understand, Mr. Long, that you want to address the Court on
behalf of every one who is summoned, or merely on behalf of yourself?
Mr. Long: The three defendants who are here want to speak. I do not want to
put the Court to the indignity of being kept here two hours and a half.
The Mayor: I don’t think you will keep us detained that time.
I want, continued Mr. Long, to spare my friends the indignity of having to
speak subject to ejaculatory remarks.
After a consultation with the Clerk (Mr. E. Newton Fuller), the Mayor said the
magistrates would be very glad to hear the defendants on any points connected
with the validity of the summonses or the question of the identity of the
persons summoned. They could not hear them on matters which referred to the
law in general. “We sit here,” continued his Worship, “not only as
representing ourselves, but representing the Bench of the future, who may be
guided by any precedent which we may set. It is quite possible we may have to
consider at this Court similar cases which have no reference to these before
us. It is very undesirable at this juncture to let it go forth that this Court
is a vehicle for the expression of opinions with which the Bench have no
concern whatever.[”]
Mr. Long: I quite see your point, all I ask is for a little patience.
The Clerk: Do you suggest to us that we should take all the cases separately?
Mr. Long: I think we had better go forward in the usual way.
The Clerk: Then we can take the lot.
The mayor gave little ground, shutting down the three resisters when they tried to make their case. Long was the most determined:
At this stage the Mayor interposed, and told Mr. Long that he could not listen
to him further, but must proceed with the business of the Court.
Accordingly the business proceeded amid some disorder, as Mr. Long continued
his protest till he had said all that he intended.
Mr. Long applied for the issue, as in former years, of two distress warrants
to cover all the summonses, and this was agreed to.
At the conclusion of this business the Mayor asked the Press to make it clear
that the business of the Court proceeded during Mr Long’s address, though he
persisted in speaking the Bench had requested him to desist.
From the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic (excerpts):
Cheltenham Passive Resisters.
Nineteenth Appearance Before the Bench.
Cheltenham Passive Resisters to the Education Act of
made their
19th appearance at the Police-court on
…
A list of 25 resisters and the amounts they owed followed. Fifteen had asterisks by their names indicating that they had been “ ‘Resisters’ since the passing of the Act.” The resisters each briefly gave their reasons and the usual distress warrants were issued.
The next article comes from the Scotland Daily Record and Mail and seems to suggest that the struggle was now over:
Dr. Clifford, Passive
Resister.
The occurrence of
recalls the prominent part which the
great Nonconformist divine took in the passive resistance movement some years
ago. It was a national protest, it may be remembered, by Nonconformists
against payment of the tax under the Education Act, it being contended that
the tax was for the support of schools to whose teaching the nonconformist
idea was entirely opposed.
Many people went to prison “on principle,” and
Dr. Clifford himself was
prepared to suffer similarly, but his friends always circumvented him by
paying the tax which he himself declined to recognise.
A major Education Act, one that is still partially in force today I believe, was enacted in . I have one reference in my files to a resister (A.E. Dent) still resisting the education rate as late as , however, so apparently this did not settle the controversy.