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Between 1548 (John Assheton) and 1612 we find a thin line of anti-Trinitarians, either executed or saved by recantation. Those burned included George van Parris. (1551), Flemish surgeon; Patrick Pakingham (1555), fellmonger; Matthew Hamont (1579), ploughwright; John Lewes (1583); Peter Cole (1587), tanner; Francis Kett (1589), physician and author; Bartholomew Legate (1612), cloth-dealer, last of the Smithfield victims; and the twice-burned fanatic Edward Wightman (1612). In all these cases the anti-Trinitarian virus seems to have come from Holland; the last two executions followed the rash dedication to James I of the Latin version of the Racovian Catechism (1609).
The vogue of Socinian views, which for a time affected men like Falkland and Chillingworth, led to the abortive fourth canon of 1640 against Socinian books. The ordinance of 1648 made denial of the Trinity a capital offence, but it remained a dead letter, Cromwell intervening in the cases of Paul Best (1590-1657) and John Biddle (1616-1662).
In 1650 John Knowles was an Arian lay preacher at Chester. In 1652-1654 and 1658-1662 Biddlle held a Socinian conventicle in London; in addition to his own writings he reprinted (1651) and translated (1652) the Racovian Catechism, and the Life of Socinus (1653). His disciple Thomas Firmin (1632-1697), mercer and philanthropist, and friend of Tillotson, was weaned to Sabellian views by Stephen Nye (1648-1719), a clergyman. Firmin promoted a remarkable series of controversial tracts (1690-1699).
The term "Unitarian" first emerges in 1682, and appears in the title of the Brief History (1687). It was construed in a broad sense to cover all who, with whatever differences, held to the unipersonality of the Divine Being. Firmin had later a project of Unitarian societies "within the Church". The first preacher to describe himself as Unitarian was Thomas Emlyn (1663-1741) who gathered a London congregation in 1705. This was contrary to the Toleration Act of 1689, which excluded all who should preach or write against the Trinity. It is noteworthy that in England the Socinian controversy, initiated by Biddle, preceded the Arian controversy initiated by Samuel Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712).
Arian or semi-Arian views had much vogue during the 18th century, both in the Church and in dissent. The free atmosphere of dissenting academies (colleges) favoured new ideas. The effect of the Salters' Hall conference (1719), called for by the alleged heresy of James Peirce (1673-1726) of Exeter, was to leave dissenting congregations to determine their own orthodoxy; the General Baptists had already (1700) condoned defections from the common doctrine.
In 1689 Presbyterians and Independents had coalesced, agreeing to drop both names and to support a common fund. The union in the London fund was ruptured in 1693; in course of time differences in the administration of the two funds led to the attaching of the Presbyterian name to theological liberals, though many of the older Unitarian chapels were Independent foundations, and at least half of the Presbyterian chapels (of 1690-1710) came into the hands of Congregationalists.
Leaders in the advocacy of a purely humanitarian christology came largely from the Independents, such as Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), Caleb Fleming (1698-1779), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) and Thomas Bebham (1750-1829).
The formation of a distinct Unitarian denomination dates from the secession (1773) of Theophilus Lindsey (1723- 1808) from the Anglican Church, on the failure of the Feathers petition to parliament (1772) for relief from subscription. Lindsey's secession had been preceded in Ireland by that of William Robertson, D. D. (1705 - 1783), who has been called "the father of Unitarian nonconformity".
It was followed by other clerical secessions, mostly of men who left the ministry, and Lindsey's hope of a Unitarian movement from the Anglican Church was disappointed. By degrees his type of theology superseded Arianism in a considerable number of dissenting congregations.
The Toleration Act was amended (1779) by substituting belief in Scripture for belief in the Anglican (doctrinal) articles. In 1813 the penal acts against deniers of the Trinity were repealed. In 1825 the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was formed as an amalgamation of three older societies, for literature (1791), mission work (1806) and civil rights (1818).
Attacks were made on properties held by Unitarians, but created prior to 1813. The Wolverhampton Chapel case began in 1817, the more important Hewley Fund case in 1830; both were decided against the Unitarians in 1842.
Appeal to parliament resulted in the Dissenters' Chapels Act (1844), which secured that, so far as trusts did not specify doctrines, twenty-five years tenure legitimated existing usage.
The drier Priestley-Belsham type of Unitarianism, bound up with a determinist philosophy, was gradually modified by the influence of Channing (see below), whose works were reprinted in numerous editions and owed a wide circulation to the efforts of Robert Spears (1825 - 1899).
Another American influence, potent in reducing the rigid though limited supernaturalism of Belsham and his successors, was that of Theodore Parker (1810 - 1860). At home the teaching of James Martineau (1805-1900), resisted at first, was at length powerfully felt, seconded as it was by the influence of John James Tayler (1797 - 1869) and of John Hamilton Thom (1808 - 1894).
English Unitarianism produced some remarkable scholars, e.g. John Kenrick (1788 - 1877), James Yates (1789 - 1871), Samuel Sharpe (1799 - 1881), but few very popular preachers, though George Harris (1794 -1859) forms an exception. For the education of its ministry it supported Manchester College at Oxford (which deduced its ancestry from the academy of Richard Frankland, begun 1670), the Unitarian Home Missionary College (founded in Manchester in 1854 by John Relly Beard, D.D., and William Gaskell), and the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen.
English Unitarian periodical literature begins with Priestley's Theological Repository (1769 - 1788), and includes the Monthly Repository (1806 - 1838), The Christian Reformer (1834 - 1863), the Prospective Review (1845 - 1854), the National Review (1855 - 1864), the Theological Review (1864 - 1879), and The Hibbert Journal, one of the enterprises of the Hibbert Trust, founded by Robert Hibbert (1770 - 1849) and originally designated the Anti-Trinitarian Fund. This came into operation in 1853, awarded scholarships and fellowships, supported (1878 - 1894), an annual lectureship, and maintained (from 1894) a chair of ecclesiastical history at Manchester College.
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