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CLIFFORD, JOHN (1836- )

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 508 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CLIFFORD, See also:JOHN (1836- ) , See also:British See also:Nonconformist See also:minister and politician, son of a warp-machinist at Sawley, See also:Derbyshire, was See also:born on the 16th of See also:October 1836. As a boy he worked in a See also:lace factory, where he attracted the See also:notice of the leaders of the Baptist community, who sent him to the See also:academy at See also:Leicester and the Baptist See also:college at See also:Nottingham to be educated for the - See also:ministry. In 1858 he was called to See also:Praed See also:Street See also:chapel, See also:Paddington (See also:London), and while officiating there he attended University College and pursued his See also:education by working at the British Museum. He matriculated at London University (1859), and took its B.A. degree (1861), B.Sc. (1862), M.A. (1864), and LL.B. (1866), and in 1883 he was given the honorary degree of D.D. by See also:Bates College, U.S.A., being known therefrom as Dr Clifford. This degree, from an See also:American college of See also:minor See also:academic status, afterwards led to sarcastic allusions, but Dr Clifford had not courted it, and his London University achievements were See also:evidence enough of his intellectual equipment. At Praed Street chapel he gradually obtained a ' The See also:original See also:writ of See also:summons (1299) was addressed in Latin, Roberto domino de Clifford, i.e. See also:Robert, See also:lord of Clifford, and subsequently the barons styled themselves indifferently Lords Clifford or de Clifford, until in 1777 the 11th lord definitively adopted the latter See also:form. The " De " henceforth became See also:part of the name, having quite lost its earliest significance, and with unconscious tautology the See also:barony is commonly referred to as that of De Clifford. large following, and in 1877 Westbourne See also:Park chapel was opened for him.

As a preacher, writer, propagandist and ardent Liberal politician, he became a See also:

power in the Nonconformist See also:body. He was See also:president of the London Baptist Association in 1879, of the Baptist See also:Union in 1888 and 1899, and of the See also:National See also:Council of Evangelical Churches in 1898. His See also:chief prominence in politics, however, See also:dates from 1903 onwards in consequence of his advocacy of " passive resistance " to the Education See also:Act of 1902. Into this See also:movement he threw himself with militant ardour, his own goods being distrained upon, with those of numerous other Nonconformists, rather than that any contribution should be made by them in See also:taxation for the purpose of an Education Act which in their See also:opinion was calculated to support denominational religious teaching in the See also:schools. The " passive resistance " movement, with Dr Clifford as its chief See also:leader, had a large See also:share in the defeat of the Unionist See also:government in See also:January 1906, and his efforts were then directed to getting a new act passed which should be undenominational in See also:character. The rejection of Mr See also:Birrell's See also:bill in 1906 by the See also:House of Lords was accordingly accompanied by denunciations of that body from Dr Clifford and his followers; but as See also:year by year went by, up to 1909, with nothing but failure on the part of the Liberal ministry to arrive at any See also:solution of the education problem,—failure due now not to the House of Lords but to the inherent difficulties of the subject (see EDUCATION),—it became increasingly clear to the public generally that the easy denunciations of the act of 1902, which had played so large a part in the elections of 1906, were not so See also:simple to carry into practice, and that a See also:compromise in which the denominationalists would have their say would have to be the result. Meanwhile " passive resistance " lost its See also:interest, though Dr Clifford and his followers continued to protest against their treatment.

End of Article: CLIFFORD, JOHN (1836- )

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