Challenge: Highly Anglican Commonwealth and British Empire

I noticed something about the territories of the British Empire. The thing is, even though the Church of England was the biggest church in the United Kingdom, it seems that the Anglicans were very big in former British territories. Just comparing the Anglican Commonwealth to the Roman Catholic Church, I should note that in many countries, the RCC is larger than the AC in terms of size. Only England and New Zealand are the only places I found where there are more people who identify as Anglicans than Catholics. For some statistics, by no means complete:

Canada: RCC 43% AC 7%
Australia: RCC 25% AC 17%
Uganda: RCC 42% AC 36%
Sri Lanka: RCC 7% AC <1%
Republic of Ireland: RCC 84% AC 3%
Northern Ireland: RCC 40% AC 15%
Nigeria: RCC 11/18% AC 11% (statistics differ, RCC still has a million more people)
Kenya: RCC 23/33% AC 3% (ditto)
India: RCC apprx. 1% AC apprx. 1% (if you combine the two Anglican churches with the Mar Thomas Church there are more Anglicans)
Pakistan: RCC <1% AC <1%

For countries which I couldn't get good statistics on, or had to rely on Wikipedia, apparently there are about 100,000 Anglicans in the entire Church of the Province of South East Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Nepal), while there 850,000 Catholics in Malaysia alone. In Church of the Province of West Africa (Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone), there are about 1 million Anglicans, but supposedly 12 million Catholics in Ghana alone. For South Africa, I couldn't get a reasonable number; there are about 3 million Catholics and either 1.7/4 million Anglicans.

In all of these cases, Anglicans form either a small or medium-sized minority, generally smaller than the Catholic population. Is there any way with a pre-1900 POD to change this? Is there any way to get the countries of the British Commonwealth be more Anglican? Not that Anglicans have to be a majority in the Commonwealth (thanks to the fact that India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh make up about 75% of the Commonwealth population), but could they be the largest Christian denomination in more countries? What countries could have an Anglican majority, or at least, what countries could have Anglican minorities which are larger than local Roman Catholic minorities? How Anglican could the British Empire become?

Without ASBs, this can only occur in the white settlement colonies and Africa. But the POD would likely mean changing Britain's traditional tolerance for non-official religions, which could bring other butterflies.

Let's suppose the non-conformist movements are suppressed and/or co-opted into the Church of England. There are no Methodists, Quakers, Congregationalists, or the like. All "true" English people are Anglicans. Anglicans receive preference in receiving land in Upper Canada (more so than OTL). Non-British immigrants must be Protestant and are encouraged (through tax benefits, better services, etc) to join the Anglican Church.

In African colonies, only the Church of England is permitted to send missionaries. Through a combination of force and inducement, the majority of black, non-Muslim African colonial subjects are at least nominal Anglicans. It helps that the traditional Anglican tolerance on doctrine has permitted indigenous practices to remain.

Irish Catholics who are sent to exile in Australia are only permitted to settle in Tasmania, where conditions are worse even compared to the exile colonies further north. They're permitted to move north if they convert, which very few do. The Protestant-first, Anglican-preferred immigration policy is replicated in Australia and New Zealand.

In India and Malaya, a handful of locals and hardly any Muslims become Anglican mostly out of opportunism. But after one or more rebellions sparked by unwelcome missionaries, the British decide not to send missionaries in these areas. Post-independence, Anglicans in India, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore are looked upon with suspicion and disdain.

EternalCynic said:

Without ASBs, this can only occur in the white settlement colonies and Africa. But the POD would likely mean changing Britain's traditional tolerance for non-official religions, which could bring other butterflies.

Let's suppose the non-conformist movements are suppressed and/or co-opted into the Church of England. There are no Methodists, Quakers, Congregationalists, or the like. All "true" English people are Anglicans. Anglicans receive preference in receiving land in Upper Canada (more so than OTL). Non-British immigrants must be Protestant and are encouraged (through tax benefits, better services, etc) to join the Anglican Church.

In African colonies, only the Church of England is permitted to send missionaries. Through a combination of force and inducement, the majority of black, non-Muslim African colonial subjects are at least nominal Anglicans. It helps that the traditional Anglican tolerance on doctrine has permitted indigenous practices to remain.

Irish Catholics who are sent to exile in Australia are only permitted to settle in Tasmania, where conditions are worse even compared to the exile colonies further north. They're permitted to move north if they convert, which very few do. The Protestant-first, Anglican-preferred immigration policy is replicated in Australia and New Zealand.

In India and Malaya, a handful of locals and hardly any Muslims become Anglican mostly out of opportunism. But after one or more rebellions sparked by unwelcome missionaries, the British decide not to send missionaries in these areas. Post-independence, Anglicans in India, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore are looked upon with suspicion and disdain.

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I guess this works, except for this last paragraph. I'm not sure how that's going to make Anglicans a larger minority than Catholics, given what happened historically. If only a handful of locals convert, it doesn't seem like that will produce a large number of Anglicans.

WhatIsAUserName said:

India: RCC apprx. 1% AC apprx. 1% (if you combine the two Anglican churches with the Mar Thomas Church there are more Anglicans)

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I'm a Mar Thomite- we're not Anglican. We're cocommunicant with them but we're essentially the branch of the Syrian Christians of India which accept the Reformation

EternalCynic said:

Without ASBs, this can only occur in the white settlement colonies and Africa. But the POD would likely mean changing Britain's traditional tolerance for non-official religions, which could bring other butterflies.

Let's suppose the non-conformist movements are suppressed and/or co-opted into the Church of England. There are no Methodists, Quakers, Congregationalists, or the like. All "true" English people are Anglicans. Anglicans receive preference in receiving land in Upper Canada (more so than OTL). Non-British immigrants must be Protestant and are encouraged (through tax benefits, better services, etc) to join the Anglican Church.

In African colonies, only the Church of England is permitted to send missionaries. Through a combination of force and inducement, the majority of black, non-Muslim African colonial subjects are at least nominal Anglicans. It helps that the traditional Anglican tolerance on doctrine has permitted indigenous practices to remain.

Irish Catholics who are sent to exile in Australia are only permitted to settle in Tasmania, where conditions are worse even compared to the exile colonies further north. They're permitted to move north if they convert, which very few do. The Protestant-first, Anglican-preferred immigration policy is replicated in Australia and New Zealand.

In India and Malaya, a handful of locals and hardly any Muslims become Anglican mostly out of opportunism. But after one or more rebellions sparked by unwelcome missionaries, the British decide not to send missionaries in these areas. Post-independence, Anglicans in India, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore are looked upon with suspicion and disdain.

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Britain never really had a tolerance for non-official religions. Instead it allowed them to emmigrate to its colonies which is where the problem begins!

Spain on the other hand forbade anyone emigrating to its colonies initially unless they were "old" Christians with at least three generations in the Catholic faith. A similar ban on British emmigration would be interesting but ultimately would result in much bloodshed in the UK mainland and probable reverse Hugenots going to the Netherlands and an exodus of English Catholics to France and Spain as per the Irish.

Derek Pullem said:

Britain never really had a tolerance for non-official religions.

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I'm going to disagree with thisas a broad statement. I would say there are times in English history when non-Anglican religions where put down, but these are rare.

I would say that for the majority of the time Britain was very tolerant of other religions. The obvious except to this is the Irish Catholics, but there where special reasons for this above and beyond the normal religious significance.

I know that Catholics have only just been allowed full citizenship in the UK (i.e. they are now allowed to hold all the jobs that Anglicans can) but this has hardly held back the Catholics in the UK.

Derek Pullem said:

Britain never really had a tolerance for non-official religions. Instead it allowed them to emmigrate to its colonies which is where the problem begins!

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As a Methodist, I've got to agree with Georgie. The Wesleys were kicked out of Communion with the Anglican church but after that they were pretty much allowed to do whatever they pleased. The Anglican Church has had a hard line on non-conformists but Catholics aside, Parliament has rarely done anything except shrugged its shoulders and said "it's not our place to comment" - especially in the mother country.

WhatIsAUserName said:

In all of these cases, Anglicans form either a small or medium-sized minority, generally smaller than the Catholic population. Is there any way with a pre-1900 POD to change this? Is there any way to get the countries of the British Commonwealth be more Anglican? Not that Anglicans have to be a majority in the Commonwealth (thanks to the fact that India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh make up about 75% of the Commonwealth population), but could they be the largest Christian denomination in more countries? What countries could have an Anglican majority, or at least, what countries could have Anglican minorities which are larger than local Roman Catholic minorities? How Anglican could the British Empire become?

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One thing the British must do is stop annexing colonies filled with non-British colonists. Of course a colony is full of Catholics if you annex it from France and of course it will be full of Calvinists if you gain it from the Netherlands.

A big part of the reason why the settler colonies are plurality Catholic is that non-conformists made up such a disproportionate percentage of Protestant emigrants. If you look at Australia for example Protestants in total have a big majority but thanks to the non-conformists Catholics are ahead in terms of single church. Add to that the Protestant tendency to splinter, post-war Souther European migration and Irish birthrates and it's not really a surprise.

Falastur said:

As a Methodist, I've got to agree with Georgie. The Wesleys were kicked out of Communion with the Anglican church but after that they were pretty much allowed to do whatever they pleased. The Anglican Church has had a hard line on non-conformists but Catholics aside, Parliament has rarely done anything except shrugged its shoulders and said "it's not our place to comment" - especially in the mother country.

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Correction, john and charles stayed anglican until their deaths. Iirc, neither would allow the formation of a separate denomination, short of disaster. Of course said disaste happened i the 13 colonies, but it never happened in britain itself.

Iirc, the formation of a methodist denomination in england had to wait for johns death.