Oxford's Attittude to Dissenters

Abstract

"A CONVICTION that, wherever else Nonconformity might . gain a footing, Oxford ought to be "preserved free from ·the Infection of unsound and seditious Principles ", persisted among university-bred Anglicans from the Restoration until the nineteenth century. In this may be found the explanation of the special degree of dislike and hardship experienced by Dissenters in the city and its continuance long after conditions had become more tolerable in other towns. The history· of Nonconformity in Oxford during, the three centuries after its introduction in 1646 may indeed be summarised by saying that only during the first fourteen years was anything like a fair field granted until, after roughly two centuries, genuine toleration was finally achieved in the last hundred years. Quakers, who were roughly handled even during the Puritan regime, got off to an even less promising start"