Nonconformist (Protestantism)

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Nonconformists are Protestant Christians who do not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England. Use of the term Nonconformist in England and Wales was precipitated by the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians (English Presbyterians and Congregationalists), plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, and Quakers. English Dissenters, such as the Puritans, who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were labelled as Nonconformists. In Ireland, the comparable term until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 was Dissenter (the term earlier used in England), typically a reference to Irish Presbyterians who refused, or dissented from, the approved Anglican communion...

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