1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Miall, Edward

MIALL, EDWARD (1809–1881), English Nonconformist divine and journalist, was born at Portsmouth on the 8th of May 1809. He was Congregational minister at Ware (1831) and Leicester (1834), and in, 1841 founded the Nonconformist, a weekly newspaper in which he advocated the cause of disestablishment. Miall saw that if the programme of Nonconformity was to be carried through it must have more effective representation in Parliament. One of the firstfruits of his work was the entrance of John Bright into parliamentary life; and by 1852 forty Dissenters were members of the House of Commons. This was due largely to the efforts of the Anti-State Church Association, afterwards known as the Liberation Society, which Miall had founded in 1844. The long fight for the abolition of compulsory church-rates was finally successful in 1868, and then in 1870 Miall was prominent in the discussions aroused by the Education Bill. He was at this time M.P. for Bradford (1860–1874), having previously (1852–1867) sat for Rochdale. In 1874 he retired from public life, and received from his admirers a present of ten thousand guineas. He died at Sevenoaks on the 29th of April 1881.

See the Life, by A. Miall (1884).