The organisation was founded as the Church of England Protection Society on 12 May 1859 to challenge the authority of the English civil courts to determine questions of doctrine.
In particular, it was active in defending Anglo-Catholic priests such as Arthur Tooth, Sidney Faithorn Green and Richard William Enraght against legal action brought under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874.
The passage of this law was secured by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait to restrict the growing Oxford Movement and had the support of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
[1] Such prosecutions ended in 1906 after a Royal Commission recognized pluralism in worship, but the act was not repealed until the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963.
In 1933, the English Church Union merged with the Anglo-Catholic Congress to form the present organisation.