EMANCIPATION, ACT OF. — It contemplated the repeal of the laws which in Great Britain and Ireland placed Catholics in a state of legal and political inferiority with respect to Protestants.
The most important provision in this matter was the Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects of 13 April 1829 (10 George 4 c. 7). Before this, which was the fundamental measure, other laws had already alleviated the condition of Catholics under the reign of George III. In 1778 (18 George 3 c. 60), upon taking an oath of allegiance, they acquired the right to own land, and in 1791 (31 George 3 c. 32), Catholics who had taken the oath were guaranteed the right to practise as solicitors, barristers, attorneys and notaries.
This was only the beginning; but while, in Parliament, given the gravity of the Irish situation, the abolition of the restrictions was debated several times, it encountered an insurmountable obstacle in the Protestant stronghold of the House of Lords. Finally, during the winter of 1828–29, the prime minister Wellington and the Home Secretary Peel succeeded in convincing King George IV of the political advisability of granting Catholics the civil and political rights hitherto denied them. The bill was introduced in the Commons with a major speech by Peel (5 March 1829). Passed on third reading by 320 votes to 132, it was then transmitted to the Lords, where it obtained a majority of 104 votes. Having received royal assent, it entered into force on 13 April of the same year. By virtue of this law, Catholics acquired the right to belong to the House of Lords and to the House of Commons, and were granted the right to vote; only ministers of religion were prohibited from serving as members of Parliament. Every civil and military office, upon the taking of an oath—subsequently abolished in 1871—could be held by Catholics, with the exceptions, however, of the offices of regent of the United Kingdom, Lord Chancellor, and others. Nevertheless, Catholics could celebrate their religious ceremonies only in places designated for that purpose or in private houses; members of Catholic religious orders or ecclesiastical communities residing in the Kingdom were also required to register, and those who had entered the territory of the State clandestinely were expelled from it for life. These latter provisions were repealed by the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 15 December 1926 (16 and 17 George 3 c. 53). Some restrictions still remain, including that the sovereign may neither be of the Catholic religion nor have a Catholic wife, and another which forbids Catholics to hold certain high offices (regent, etc.).
BIBLI: J. Amherst, The History of the Catholic Emancipation and the Progress of the Catholic Church in the British Isles, London 1886; W. S. Lilly, J. E. P. Wallis, A manual of the law specially affecting Catholics, ibid. 1893, in which, from p. 160 to p. 170, the text of the Act of 1896 is also reproduced in full; H. W. C. Davis, Catholic Emancipation, in The Cambridge Modern History, X, Cambridge 1907, pp. 620–54, with bibliography. On the movement for Catholic emancipation in the early years of the nineteenth century, cf. G. C. Brodick, J. K. Fotheringham, The History of England from Addingtons administration to the close of William IV's reign, in The Political History of England, XI, London 1906, pp. 237–52.