The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. It was the largest ever political gathering of working class people. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
Following the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August 1819, the government of the United Kingdom acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of radical reform. Élie Halévy considered them a panic-stricken extension of "the counter-revolutionary terror ... under the direct patronage of Lord Sidmouth and his colleagues"; some later historians have treated them as relatively mild gestures towards law and order, only tentatively enforced.
The Statute of Frauds (1677) was an act of the Parliament of England. It required that certain types of contracts, wills, and grants, and assignment or surrender of leases or interest in real property must be in writing and signed to avoid fraud on the court by perjury and subornation of perjury. It also required that documents of the courts be signed and dated.
Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purpose – that is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and Wales.
The Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 was emergency legislation passed just prior to the outbreak of World War II by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to enable the British government to take up emergency powers to prosecute the war effectively. It contained clauses giving the government wide powers to create Defence Regulations by Order in Council. These regulations governed almost every aspect of everyday life in the country during the War. Two offences under the regulations were punishable with death. Following the conclusion of the war, the 1939 Act was repealed, with the individual regulations gradually following suit. As of 2023, at least one Regulation remains in force.
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment.
The Blanketeers or Blanket March was a demonstration organised in Manchester in March 1817. The intention was for the participants, who were mainly Lancashire weavers, to march to London and petition the Prince Regent over the desperate state of the textile industry in Lancashire, and to protest over the recent suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The march was broken up violently and its leaders imprisoned. The Blanketeers formed part of a series of protests and calls for reform that culminated in 1819 with the Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts.
Australian sedition law was an area of the criminal law of Australia relating to the crime of sedition.
The Seditious Meetings Act 1795 was approved by the British Parliament in December 1795; it had as its purpose was to restrict the size of public meetings to fifty persons.
The Piracy Act 1717, sometimes called the Transportation Act 1717, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that established a regulated, bonded system to transport criminals to colonies in North America for indentured service, as a punishment for those convicted or attainted in Great Britain, excluding Scotland. The Act established a seven-year transportation sentence as a punishment for people convicted of lesser felonies, and a fourteen-year sentence for more serious crimes, in lieu of capital punishment. Completion of the sentence had the effect of a pardon; the punishment for returning before completion was death. It is commonly accepted that 30,000 convicts may have been transported to the British American colonies, with some estimates going as high as 50,000.
Criminal Law Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the Kingdom of Great Britain and later in the United Kingdom, as well as in the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Singapore. The term encompasses acts relating to the criminal law, including both substantive and procedural aspects of that law. The term sometimes tends to be used for Acts that do not have a single cohesive subject matter.
The Treason Act 1795 was one of the Two Acts introduced by the British government in the wake of the stoning of King George III on his way to open Parliament in 1795, the other being the Seditious Meetings Act 1795. The Act made it high treason to "within the realm or without compass, imagine, invent, devise or intend death or destruction, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maim or wounding, imprisonment or restraint, of the person of ... the King". This was derived from the Sedition Act 1661, which had expired. The 1795 Act was originally a temporary Act which was to expire when George III died, but it was made permanent by the Treason Act 1817.
The Treason Act 1817 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It made it high treason to assassinate the Prince Regent. It also made permanent the Treason Act 1795, which had been due to expire on the death of George III.
The Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act was passed in the aftermath of the Spithead and Nore mutinies and aimed to prevent the seduction of sailors and soldiers to commit mutiny.
The Gagging Acts was the common name for two acts of Parliament passed in 1817 by Conservative Prime Minister Lord Liverpool. They were also known as the Grenville and Pitt Bills. The specific acts themselves were the Treason Act 1817 and the Seditious Meetings Act 1817.
The Unlawful Drilling Act 1819, also known as the Training Prevention Act is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was one of the Six Acts passed after the Peterloo massacre.
The Seditious Meetings Act 1817 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which made it illegal to hold a meeting of more than 50 people.
The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which was its first attempt to regulate the hours and conditions of work of children in the cotton industry. It was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, who had first introduced a bill on the matter in 1815. The 1815 bill had been instigated by Robert Owen, but the Act as passed was much weaker than the 1815 bill; the Act forbade the employment of children under 9; children aged 9–16 years were limited to 12 hours' work per day and could not work at night. There was no effective means of its enforcement, but it established the precedent for Parliamentary intervention on conditions of employment which was followed by subsequent Factory Acts.
The Unlawful Societies Act 1799 was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1799, as part of measures by Pitt the Younger to suppress republican opposition. It is also sometimes referred to as the Corresponding Societies Act or Seditious Societies Act.
