NonconformistArticle Free Pass Nonconformist, also called
Dissenter, or Free Churchman, any English Protestant who does
not conform to the doctrines or practices of the established
Church of England. The word Nonconformist was first used in the
penal acts following the Restoration of the monarchy (1660) and
the Act of Uniformity (1662) to describe the conventicles
(places of worship) of the congregations that had separated from
the Church of England (Separatists). Nonconformists are also
called dissenters (a word first used of the five Dissenting
Brethren at the Westminster Assembly of Divines in 1643–47).
Because of the movement begun in the late 19th century by which
Nonconformists of different denominations joined together in the
Free Church Federal Council, they are also called Free
Churchmen. The term Nonconformist is generally applied in
England and Wales to all Protestants who have dissented from
Anglicanism—Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians,
Methodists, and Unitarians—and also to independent