It abolished religious "Tests" and allowed Roman Catholics, non-conformists and non-Christians to take up professorships, fellowships, studentships and other lay offices at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham.

[3] The Cambridge University Act 1856 abolished tests for all degrees in Arts, Law, Music and Medicine, but stated that the degree would not enable the holder to become a member of senate or hold "any Office … which has been heretofore always held by a Member of the United Church of England and Ireland" unless they made a declaration that they were "bona fide a Member of the Church of England"[4] (the latter provisions were abolished by the 1871 Act).

[citation needed] The direct instigation for this legislation was the widely publicised case of Numa Edward Hartog, the first Jewish Senior Wrangler in the history of Cambridge University, who could not accept the fellowship that would otherwise routinely be offered, because he could not subscribe to the required test on account of his religion.

[7] Numa Hartog would have been the first Jew after the passing of this act to be elected a fellow at the University of Cambridge, but he died of smallpox.

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