Religious routes to Gladstonian liberalism : the church rate conflict in England and Wales, 1832-1868 /

Ellens (Redeemer College, Ontario) has written a superb study of the acrimonious and divisive mid-18th century church rate controversy. After 1832, Protestant Dissenters, using their new political power, led the attack on church rates--an ancient property tax levied at the parish level on property owners, regardless of religious affiliation, to maintain Anglican churches. They viewed the tax as a symbol of their second-class status. Ellens traces in detail the bitter 36-year controversy, but never loses sight of the broad view. The Dissenters' attack was a religious revolution that was as important as its political counterparts. The church rate debate logically became war on the traditional establishment principle and the relationship between church and state. Gladstone's solution in 1868 saved the principle of establishment and won him Dissenters' votes, but it also marked the beginning of the liberal, secularized state. Ellens's study supplements Perry Butler's Gladstone, Church, State and Tracterianism (1832) and Peter Stansky's Gladstone, Progress in Politics (CH, Nov'79). Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. W. J. Hoffman Jr.; Hiram College