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II. The ‘London Evening-Post’ and the Jew Bill of 1753

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

G. A. Cranfield
Affiliation:
Newcastle University College, New South Wales

Extract

Over the so-called ‘Jew Bill’; of 1753, the Opposition press was to wage one of the most extraordinary propaganda campaigns in English history. The Bill itself was a comparatively minor measure introduced by the Pelham ministry t o relieve at least some of the disabilities under which the Jews then laboured. Although there was probably no country in Europe in which the Jews received better treatment, and Jewish merchants and financiers had attained positions of very considerable wealth and influence in England, a number of irksome restrictions remained. This was particularly the case in the matter of naturalization, which gave to aliens the rights of natural-born Englishmen, such as the right to own land and ships, and to trade with the colonies. The Jewish Naturalization Bill–to give it its proper title—was designed to remove this disability, by providing that individual Jews who had been resident i n Great Britain or Ireland for three years might be naturalized by Act of Parliament without taking the Sacrament. It was a very modest measure. It certainly did not confer on all Jews in the country the rights of British citizens, and would, in fact, have applied only to a very small number of extremely wealthy Jews, for a private Act of Parliament was a very expensive proceeding indeed. Nor did it relieve Jews of religious disabilities. Yet this Bill was to produce a quite remarkable clamour on the part of the Opposition press, in which it was to be denounced as a blasphemous attack upon Christianity, and the unfortunate Jews were to be accused of every imaginable vice and enormity. There were few political issues in the early eighteenth century to arouse the emotions of Englishmen: but the ‘Jew Bill’; was certainly one of them.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1 Roth, C., A History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1049), p. 202Google Scholar. The author has drawn heavily upon this invaluable work for background material.

2 15 May. (All dates given refer to the London Evening-Post and to the year 1753, unless otherwise indicated. The dates are those of actual publication, and the numbers of the issues have been ignored as being both inaccurate and unnecessary.)

3 19 May.

4 26 May.

5 31 May.

6 2 June.

7 5 June. See also 7 June.

9 Roth, C., op. cit. p. 216Google Scholar.

10 16 June.

11 19 June.

12 28 June.

13 30 June. See also 3 July.

14 10 July. See also 19 and 21 July.

15 10 July.

16 21 July.

17 24 July.

18 1 Nov.

19 6 Nov. See also 8 Sept.

20 Respectively 14 and 19 July.

21 20 Oct. See also 28 Aug. and 4 and 8 Sept.

22 31 July.

23 21 Aug.

24 28 July.

25 26 July.

26 7 Aug. See also 28 July, 23 Sept., 4 and 18 Oct.

27 E.g. 17 Sept. 1754.

28 23 June

29 I Sept.

30 14 Aug. See also 27 Oct.

31 4 Sept.

32 Aug. See also 18 Sept.

33 23 Aug.

34 I Sept.

35 21 June.

37 4 Sept.

38 5 July.

39 30 Oct.

40 25 Aug.

41 24 July.

42 18 Aug.

43 E.g. 9, 18, 21 and 25 Aug., II, 16 and 23 Oct., 6 Nov., etc.

44 27 Dec.

45 16 Aug.

46 27 Sept.

47 Quoted Robson, R. J., The Oxfordshire Election 0/1754 (Oxford, 1949), p. 87Google Scholar.

48 Quoted Ibid. p. 87.

49 21 Aug. 50 29 Aug. 1754.