Description: This meeting was held at the Mechanics Institute in Nottingham. Machanics Institutes became common in most towns of Britain and the United States between 1820 and 1860 for the voluntary education of skilled manual workers. Ideally such an institute was to have a library, a museum, a laboratory, public lectures about applied science, and courses in various skills, but few had all of these. They were places where artisans could learn, part-time, the basic principles of science, particularly mechanics, physics and chemistry. Mechanics Institutes were also used as exhibition centres and meeting places for clubs in the Sciences as well as the Arts. The crowded event seen here was for the Reformation Society's anniversary. At this time there were great popular movements for political reform, but the group seen here were not celebrating for that cause, but rather for the Protestant Reformation (there are many flags hanging around the room with anti-Catholic slogans). In our secular age and the general decline in interest in religious or spiritual matters most people would now be hard pressed to define Protestantism or its place in our history. It's basic precepts was that religion should be based on the individual, not on the authority of a Church. Protestants believe that you are saved by your faith alone - if you are truly sorry for the sins you have committed in your earthly life, then you will be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven. Protestants believe in the authority of the Holy Bible as God's written and holy word: the scriptures are open to individual interpretation, but man-made traditions or dogmas should not be placed on a par with its teachings. Protestantism, then, paved the way for the liberal ideas of freedom of the individual conscience. Basing life on the individual may seem an unremarkable idea today, but it was an enormous change in the days when western Europe was governed under the absolute authority of monarchs in civic affairs and the Roman Catholic Church in spiritual matters. As consequence Protestants were often hideously persecuted. In England, perhaps because the initial break with the Roman Catholic Church occurred for cynical reasons (i.e. - King Henry VIII demands for a divorce), the impact the Reformation had on our society has often been greatly understated. Although Henry VIII himself was fairly religiously conservative, many of his appointees, such as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the Lord Chancellor Thomas Cromwell, were confirmed religious radicals, who used their positions to advance the Reformation of the Church of England. Other Bishops such as Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and John Hooper also advanced the cause during the early years of the Reformation during the reigns of King Henry VIII and the boy King Edward VI. (King Henry VIII died in 1547, and the anniversary seen here could be the 300 years since that date.)