another part of the field; but by the passing of the Sheriffs' Declaration Act to hold the ancient and important office of sheriff. In the following year the Jew Bill was introduced late in the session, and succeeded in passing its first reading in the Lords on 19 August but was then dropped owing to the lateness of the session. Membership of parliament Sir Sampson Gideon, who had a Jewish father and Christian mother, was a baronet, member of parliament and Irish peer in the eighteenth century. The economist and financier David Ricardo was born into a family of Sephardic Jews but converted to Unitarianism aged 21 and was a member of parliament from 1819 to 1823. Benjamin Disraeli, who was born Jewish and baptised aged 12 into the Church of England, was a member of parliament from 1837, served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852, 1858–1859 and 1867–1868 Conservative governments. He went on to become, in 1868 and again in 1874, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was elevated to the House of Lords in 1876. His willingness to take Christian oaths meant there were no barriers to his political career; for Jews who had not converted to Christianity the oath remained the key obstacle. The oath of office included the words "and I make this Declaration upon the true Faith of a Christian". For a time the advocates of Jewish emancipation seemed to have lost heart. The chief supporters of the bill, Robert Grant in the Commons, and Lord Holland in the Lords, died within a few months of each other in 1840, and during the next four years the political activity of the English Jews was concentrated on the attempt to obtain admission to municipal office. A bill to that effect got as far as a first reading in the Lords by one vote, in 1841, but was lost on a second reading. It was not until 31 July 1845 that the bill was carried. On 18 August 1846, the Religious Opinions Relief Act removed some of minor disabilities that affected British Jews and dissenters from the Established Church; the only state office that still remained closed to Jews was Parliament. The success with which British Jews had induced Parliament to admit them to the shrievalty and to municipal offices had been because Jews had been actual candidates, and had been elected to those offices