Book of Common Prayer (1928)

Plaque at St Andrew's parish church, Felixstowe, Suffolk, commemorating the defeat of the 1928 Prayer Book in the House of Commons

The Church of England’s 1928 proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer was approved in 1927 by the Church Assembly but its authorization was defeated in the House of Commons on 14 June 1928.

In order to reduce conflict with traditionalists, it was decided that the form of service to be used would be determined by each congregation, with the older 1662 forms of services continuing to be available alongside the 1928 forms.^[1]

Since the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 required measures affecting the Book of Common Prayer to be approved by Parliament before receiving royal assent, the measure authorising its use, together with an annexed copy (a "Deposited Book"), was submitted to Parliament. The House of Lords approved the Book by a large majority, but the corresponding resolution in the House of Commons was defeated by on thirty-three votes on 15 December 1927 when the MPs William Joynson-Hicks and Rosslyn Mitchell "reached and inflamed all the latent Protestant prejudices in the House" and argued strongly against it, largely in opposition to the "Roman" practice of reservation of sacrament which the Book would have legalized in the Church of England, albeit in a limited fashion and for the specific purpose of communion of the sick only.^[1][2][3] The prayer book was submitted again the following year and defeated a second time in the Commons on 14 June 1928.^[4]

In response to this rejection, the bishops issued a unanimous statement, asserting the Church of England's right to order its forms of worship and, in 1929, the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury resolved that bishops might approve the use of the 1928 book, notwithstanding the lack of parliamentary authority. It became common for prayer books to be printed with the 1662 and 1928 forms of service in parallel columns, although the legal basis of the revision remained unclear. The 1928 revised forms of Matrimony and Baptism were quite widely adopted, but those of other rites tended not to be; the consequence, in practice, being very wide variation in liturgical practice from parish to parish, with very few clergy adhering consistently to the strict observation of either the 1662 or the 1928 forms of worship.

In 1966, with some changes, many services from the 1928 book were authorized as legal for public worship, as the First Series of Alternative Services, and subsequently continued in use through authorization by inclusion in the Alternative Service Book and its successor, Common Worship.^[5]

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