The rector of Prestwich-cum-Oldham "was at first reluctantly compliant and then an avowed opponent" of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559. There is, though, little other evidence of opposition to the English Reformation and the established church. Nevertheless, it is one of only a few parishes in England in which any resistance occurred; there was a show of popular support for the abolition of the Book of Common Prayer and Episcopal polity in favour of Presbyterian polity supported by presbyters in the parish of Manchester. By 1662, the rector of Prestwich-cum-Oldham complied with Anglicanism, but the curate of Oldham, St Mary's was expelled for preaching nonconformism; chapels at Stand and Greenacres span virtually the whole history of non-conformity in the United Kingdom, as does a Quaker meeting-house at Royton.