An Act to Oblige the Jews to Maintain and Provide for their Protestant Children

An act of Parliament 'To the end that sufficient maintenance be provided and allowed for the children of Jewish parents, who shall turn Protestants' (p.453).

The law arose from the curious case of Mary de Mendez Berta, an eighteen-year-old who was disowned and expelled from the family home following her conversion to Protestantism. A petition was brought before Parliament in an attempt to make Mary's father, Jacob de Mendez Berta, pay for his daughter's upkeep, after which it was resolved that a bill be produced to address her case.

The resultant act had some effect in the eighteenth century, and was considered by the Lord Chancellor Thomas Parker in the 1718 case of Vincent vs. Fernandez. Here it was found that the law could apply equally to the adult child of a Jewish parent, in this instance a 44-year-old married woman who had been cut-out of her father's will. The law remained in effect until 1846 when it was repealed by the Religious Disabilities Act.

Folio (27.5 x 17.5 cm); woodcut headpiece and initial, black letter; single leaf from 'Anno Regni Annæ Reginæ Angliæ, Scotiæ, Franciæ, & Hiberniæ, primo. At the Parliament begun at Westminster the thirtieth day of December... 1701' (acts of Parliament for the last year of the reign of William III, and the first year of Anne); unbound; 453-454pp.

ESTC N53589; Roth, Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, p.246, no.1; Henriques, The Jews and the English Law, (Oxford, 1908).