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 The 1711 Act was repealed in 1719.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:
“For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What right have you to hold up this obstacle to my understanding you, to your understanding me! You did not invent it; it was imposed on you. Examine your authority. Even Christ, we fear, had his scheme, his conformity to tradition, which slightly vitiates his teaching. He had not swallowed all formulas. He preached some mere doctrines.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)