Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Sources
The clerk offered to Baron Rothschild a copy of the new oath required
to be taken by members.
BARON ROTHSCHILD: I beg to state, sir, that I have conscientious
objection to take the oath in the form in which it is now tendered to
me.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL (after Baron Rothschild had retired) rose and said:
My object in rising, sir, is to move a resolution in conformity with an
Act recently passed. It is as follows:
“That it appears to this House that Baron Lionel de Rothschild, a
person professing the Jewish religion, being otherwise entitled to sit
and vote in this House, is prevented from so sitting and voting by his
conscientious objection to take the oath which, by an Act passed in the
present session of Parliament, has been substituted for the oaths of
allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, in the form therein required.”
The resolution was agreed to.
LORD J. RUSSELL: I now rise, sir, to move a resolution in pursuance
of the Act which received the assent of Her Majesty in the 23rd
instant; and which is entitled “An Act to Provide for the Relief of Her
Majesty’s Subjects Professing the Jewish Religion.” In order that the
House may be fully in possession of the words of that Act I shall now
read them. By the first clause it is enacted that:
“Where it shall appear to either House of Parliament that a person
professing the Jewish religion, otherwise entitled to sit and vote in
such House, is prevented from so sitting and voting by conscientious
objection to take the oath, ... such House, if it think fit, may
resolve that thenceforth any person professing the Jewish religion, in
taking the said oath to entitle him to sit and vote as aforesaid, may
omit the words, ‘and I make this declaration upon the true faith of a
Christian.’”
LORD J. RUSSELL then moved a resolution embodying the above.
After some debate the House divided--
For the Resolution 69
Against 37
--
Majority 32
Baron Rothschild then advanced to the table, conducted as before by
Lord J. Russell and Mr. Smith, and as he walked up the floor of the
House was greeted with loud cheering from the Opposition benches. He
desired to be sworn upon the Old Testament, and his request being
at once complied with by the Speaker, he took the new form of oath,
omitting the words, “and I make this declaration upon the true faith of
a Christian.” The hon. gentleman then signed the roll of Parliament,
and during the course of the subsequent proceedings he exercised the
most important function of a legislator by voting twice upon the
Corrupt Practices’ Prevention Act Continuance Bill.
AN INADEQUATE NAVY (1858).
=Source.=--_Letters of Queen Victoria_, edited by A. C. Benson, M.A.,
and Viscount Esher, vol. iii., pp. 378, 379. (John Murray, 1907.)
QUEEN VICTORIA TO THE EARL OF DERBY.
OSBORNE,
_August 2, 1858_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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