[Parliamentary Act]. An Act to Repeal…an Act to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized by Parliament

(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

Thomas Baskett

London

1753

Initial letter within richly historiated woodcut borders

Roth, Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, p. 246, no. 4; Hyamson, Bibliography, no. 72

REPEAL OF PERMISSION TO NATURALIZE JEWS. Although the Naturalization Act 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 The Whig government was forced by public opinion to concede and the pro-Jewish legislation was duly repealed in the same year that it was enacted