[Parliamentary Act]. An Act to Oblige the Jews to Maintain and Provide for their Protestant Children.

(ANGLO-JUDAICA).

Charles Bill

London

1702

Royal seal on title. Initial letter within richly historiated woodcut border.

Roth, Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, p. 246, no. 1.

First Specifically Jewish Act of Parliament Post Re-Admission. This Act issued in the year of Queen Anne’s accession to the throne, prevents attempts by Jewish parents to force their apostate children to return to the Jewish fold. In such case that children born to Jewish parents convert to the majority religion of Protestantism, the parents are enjoined by English law to continue to support their children and may not disown them. The Act was precipitated by events in the life of the converted Jewess Mary Mendez de Breta and the subsequent relationship with her parents. See H.S.Q. Henriques, The Jews and the English Law (1908) pp. 167-69.