[Parliamentary Act]. An Act to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion, to be Naturalized by Parliament. BOUND WITH: An Act to Repeal...An Act to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion, to be Naturalized by Parliament

(ANGLO JUDAICA)

n.p.

London

1753

Together, two Acts. Text in English. Initial letters within historiated woodcut borders

Hyamson, Bibliography no. 4 and 72

In the year 1609 the naturalization of any foreigner settled in England was made contingent on their acceptance of the Sacrament. Although this act was deliberately directed against Catholics, it incidentally would later affect Jews following the Re-Admission of 1653. This disability was lifted by the Whig Government of Henry Pelham in the Act of 1753 to permit persons professing the Jewish religion to be naturalized by Parliament. The Bill was, at best, a limited advantage to the Jews because only the wealthy could have set in motion the machinery necessary to obtain naturalization. Although the measure was accepted unanimously by the House of Lords, it became a pawn in the upcoming general election campaign that resulted in its eventual repeal by the House of Commons. Taking full advantage of the prejudices and fears that the grant of naturalization to Jews had aroused, the Tory opposition fueled the unpopularity of the Act with a pamphlet and broadsheet campaign that warned of an England that would become overrun with Jews. The Whig government was forced by public opinion to give way and the pro-Jewish legislation was duly repealed in the same year that it was enacted. See: J. Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History (1956) pp. 73-86 and A. Hyamson, The Sephardim of England (1951) pp.127-8