The Occasional Conformity Act (also known as the Toleration Act 1711) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (statute number 10 Anne c. 6), the long title of which is "An Act for preserving the Protestant Religion" which passed on 20 December 1711.
Its purpose was to prevent Nonconformists and Roman Catholics from taking "occasional" communion in the Church of England in order to become eligible for public office under the Corporation Act and the Test Act. Under these acts only members of the Church of England were allowed to hold any office of public trust. Previous Occasional Conformity bills had been debated in 1702 and 1704. The 1711 Act was repealed in 1719.
Famous quotes containing the words occasional, conformity and/or act:
“However much we admire the orator’s occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That man is a creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his conformity and define his deviancy.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“quaking muscles in the act of birth,
Between her legs a pigmy face appear,
And the first murderer lay upon the earth.”
—Alec Derwent Hope (b. 1907)