In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the transformations of the Industrial Revolution started to make themselves felt, as the population of many urban areas rose dramatically. The provision of parish churches did not match this new distribution of people, and some cities (including Manchester, Sheffield, Stockport and parts of London) had nowhere near enough space in their existing churches for the number of people in the area. As a result, the government passed a Church Building Act in 1818, and another in 1824, giving first £1 million and then an additional £500 000 to allow new churches to be built. The government hoped that this would also aid in preventing revolutionary uprisings, since the French Revolution was seen …
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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Church Building Act". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=4606, accessed 23 November 2024.]
