{{Short description|Act of the Parliament of Great Britain}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2025}} {{Use British English|date=August 2025}} {{Distinguish|Jew Bill}} {{Infobox UK legislation | short_title = Naturalization of Jews Act 1753 | type = Act | parliament = Parliament of Great Britain | long_title = An Act to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be {{Not a typo|naturalized}} by Parliament; and for other Purposes therein mentioned. | year = 1753 | citation = [[26 Geo. 2]]. c. 26 | territorial_extent = [[Great Britain]] | royal_assent = 7 July 1753 | commencement = 11 January 1753{{efn|name="sos"|Start of session.}} | repeal_date = 20 December 1753 | repealing_legislation = [[Naturalization of Jews Act 1754]] | related_legislation = {{ubli|[[Naturalisation and Restoration of Blood Act 1609]]|[[Naturalization Act 1739]]}} | status = Repealed | original_text = https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a7wuAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA97 }} {{Infobox UK legislation | short_title = Naturalization of Jews Act 1754 | type = Act | parliament = Parliament of Great Britain | long_title = An Act to repeal an Act of the Twenty-sixth Year of His Majesty's Reign, intituled, "An Act to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be {{Not a typo|naturalized}} by Parliament; and for other Purposes therein mentioned." | year = 1754 | citation = [[27 Geo. 2]]. c. 1 | territorial_extent = [[Great Britain]] | royal_assent = 20 December 1753 | commencement = 15 November 1753{{efn|name="sos"}} | repeal_date = 15 July 1867 | replaces = Naturalization of Jews Act 1753 | repealing_legislation = [[Statute Law Revision Act 1867]] | related_legislation = | status = Repealed | original_text = https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a7wuAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA158 | collapsed = yes }} {{History of the Jews in England}} The '''Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753''' ([[26 Geo. 2]]. c. 26) was an [[Act of Parliament (United Kingdom)]] of the [[Parliament of Great Britain]] which allowed [[Jews]] resident in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] to become naturalised by application to [[Parliament of Great Britain|Parliament]]. It received [[royal assent]] on 7 July 1753 but was repealed in 1754 by the '''{{visible anchor|Naturalization of Jews Act 1754}}''' ([[27 Geo. 2]]. c. 1) due to widespread opposition to its provisions.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology">{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|url=https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will|url-access=registration|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/316 316]}}</ref><ref name="Perry">{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=TW |title=Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics in 18th-Century England: A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753 |date=1962 |publisher=Harvard Univ. Pres |location=Cambridge, Mass.}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Katznelson|first=Ira|date=2021-05-11|title=Measuring Liberalism, Confronting Evil: A Retrospective|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|language=en|volume=24|issue=1|pages=1–19|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-042219-030219|issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free}}</ref>
==History== During the [[Jacobite rising of 1745]], the Jews had shown particular loyalty to the government. Their chief financier, [[Sampson Gideon]], had strengthened the [[stock market]], and several of the younger members had volunteered in the corps raised to defend London. Possibly as a reward, [[Henry Pelham]] in 1753 brought in the '''Jew Bill of 1753''', which allowed Jews to become naturalised by application to Parliament. It passed the [[House of Lords|Lords]] without much opposition, but on being brought down to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], the [[Tories (British political party)|Tories]] made protest against what they deemed an "abandonment of Christianity." The [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]], however, persisted in carrying out at least one part of their general policy of [[religious toleration]], and the bill was passed and received royal assent ([[26 Geo. 2]]. c. 26). The public reacted with an enormous outburst of [[antisemitism]], and the Bill was repealed in the next sitting of Parliament, in 1754.<ref name=MuirBishopsPalace>{{cite news|last1=Appelbaum|first1=Diana Muir|author-link=Diana Muir|title=Jacob's Sons in the Bishop's Palace|url=http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5364/features/jacobs-sons/|accessdate=1 August 2016|publisher=[[Jewish Ideas Daily]]|date=14 November 2012}}</ref>
Within the Bedfordite press, the opposition weekly [[The Protester (periodical)| The Protester]] campaigned against the bill during its 1753 run.<ref>{{cite book |last=Okie |first=Laird |title=Augustan Historical Writing: Historiography in England, 1688–1750 |location=Lanham, MD |publisher=University Press of America |year=1991 |page=157}}</ref>
[[Horace Walpole]], a contemporary observer, said that the Act removed "such absurd distinctions, as stigmatized and shackled a body of the most loyal, commercial and wealthy subjects of the kingdom"; the affair demonstrated that "the age, enlightened as it is called, was still enslaved to the grossest and most vulgar prejudices".<ref>Horace Walpole, ''Memoirs of King George II. I: January 1751–March 1754'', ed. John Brooke (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 238.</ref> The political economist [[Josiah Tucker]] defended the Act in ''A Letter to A Friend Concerning Naturalizations'' (1753), where he pointed to the economic benefits of granting naturalisation to Jewish people:
<blockquote>As to the Bill itself, it only empowers ''rich'' Foreigners to ''purchase Lands'', and to carry on a free and ''extensive Commerce'', by importing all Sorts of Merchandise and ''Raw Materials'', allowed by Law to be imported, for the Employment of our own People, and then Exporting the Surplus of the Produce, Labour, and Manufactures of our own Country, upon ''cheaper'' and ''better'' Terms than is done at present. This is all the Hurt that such a Bill ''can'' do.<ref>Josiah Tucker, ''A Letter to A Friend Concerning Naturalizations'' (London: Thomas Trye, 1753), pp. 6-7.</ref><ref>Alan H. Singer, 'Great Britain or Judea Nova? National Identity, Property, and the Jewish Naturalization Controversy of 1753', in Sheila A. Spector (ed.), ''British Romanticism and the Jews: History, Culture, Literature'' (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 32.</ref></blockquote>
==German Jews== While the [[Sephardim]] chiefly congregated in London as the centre of international commerce, Jews immigrating from Germany and Poland settled for the most part in the seaports of the south and west, such as [[Falmouth, Cornwall|Falmouth]], [[Plymouth]], [[Liverpool]], [[Bristol]], etc., as pawnbrokers and small dealers. From these centres it became their custom to send out hawkers every Monday with packs to the neighbouring villages, whereby connections were made with some of the inland towns, where they began to settle, such as [[Canterbury]], [[Chatham, Kent|Chatham]], [[Cambridge]], [[Manchester]], and [[Birmingham]]. Traders of this type, while not of such prominence as the larger merchants of the capital, came in closer contact with ordinary English people and may have helped to allay some of the prejudice which had been manifested so strongly in 1753.
==See also== *[[History of the Jews in England]] *[[History of the Jews in England (1066–1290) ]] *[[Edict of Expulsion]] *[[History of the Marranos in England]] *[[Resettlement of the Jews in England]] **[[Menasseh Ben Israel]] (1604–1657) *[[Emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom]] *[[Early English Jewish literature]] *[[Rothschild family]] *[[History of the Jews in Scotland]]
==Notes== {{notelist}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * Crome, Andrew. "The 1753 ‘Jew Bill’ Controversy: Jewish Restoration to Palestine, Biblical Prophecy, and English National Identity." ''English Historical Review'' 130.547 (2015): 1449-1478 [https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/619584/1/EHR%20REVISION%20-%20Submission%20May%2014.pdf online] *Katz, David S. ''Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) *Katz, David S. ''The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) * Rabin, Dana Y. "The Jew Bill of 1753: Masculinity, virility, and the nation." ''Eighteenth-century studies'' 39.2 (2006): 157–171. * Yuval-Naeh, Avinoam. "The 1753 Jewish Naturalization Bill and the Polemic over Credit." ''Journal of British Studies'' 57.3 (2018): 467-492. [https://www.academia.edu/download/57453496/Yuval-Naeh.1753_Jew_Bill_and_the_Polemic_over_Credit.JBS_57.3.pdf online]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} * {{Cite Jewish Encyclopedia|title=England|first=Joseph |last=Jacobs|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5764-england|volume=5|page=161}}
==External links== *[https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/eighteenth-century/1753-26-george-2-c-26-jewish-naturalization-act/ The text of the act.] *[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=england&commit=search England-related articles] in the ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
{{GB legislation}} {{Authority control}}
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