ABSTRACT
The late 1850s and 60s witnessed the founding of several militant organisations in the Church of England, each competing to reform the church according to its own distinctive theological principles. For instance, the English Church Union (ECU) and the Church Association were directly antithetical and existed partly to oppose each other. The ECU, established in 1859, aimed “to defend and maintain unimpaired the doctrine, discipline and ritual of the Church of England against Erastianism, Rationalism and Puritanism”. In contrast the Church Association, established in 1865, aimed “to counteract the efforts now being made to pervert the teaching of the Church of England on essential points of the Christian faith, or assimilate her services to those of the Church of Rome”. The aggressive work of societies such as these resulted in much of the agitation between ritualists and Protestants which was a marked feature of the late-Victorian period. Theological opinion became further polarised within the church and opponents became more deeply entrenched, as is witnessed in the renewed attacks which fell upon Cuddesdon College in 1877-79.
