Liberty of Religious Worship Act, 1855

LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP ACT 1855

C A P. LXXXVI.

An Act for securing the Liberty of Religious Worship. [14th August 1855.]

1 W. & M. Sess. 1. c. 18.

52 G. 3. c. 155.

Whereas it is expedient that the Laws affecting Assemblies for Religious Worship should be amended: And whereas by an Act passed in the First Year of King William and Queen Mary, intituled An Act for exempting Their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws, it is enacted that no Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship shall be permitted or allowed until the Place of such Meeting shall be certified and registered or recorded as described in such Act: And whereas by an Act passed in the Fifty-second Year of King George the Third, Chapter One hundred and fifty-five, intituled An Act to repeal certain Acts, and to amend other Acts, relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preaching therein, it is enacted that no Congregation or Assembly for Religious Worship of Protestants (at which there shall be present more than Twenty Persons, besides the immediate Family and Servants of the Person in whose House or upon whose Premises such Meeting, Congregation, or Assembly shall be had,) shall be permitted or allowed unless the Place of such Meeting is certified as described in such Act, and that every Person who shall knowingly permit or suffer any such Congregation or Assembly as aforesaid to meet in any Place occupied by him, until the same shall have been so certified, shall forfeit for every Time any such Congregation or Assembly shall meet a Sum not exceeding Twenty Pounds nor less than Twenty Shillings, at the Discretion of the Justices who shall convict for such Offence:’ Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, as follows: