Following the

Peterloo Massacre The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Fifteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliament ...

on 16 August 1819, the

government of the United Kingdom ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal coat of arms of t ...

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 Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

reform.

Élie Halévy Élie Halévy (6 September 1870 – 21 August 1937) was a French philosopher and historian who wrote studies of the British utilitarians, the book of essays '' Era of Tyrannies'', and a history of Britain from 1815 to 1914 that influenced British ...

considered them a panic-stricken extension of "the counter-revolutionary terror ... under the direct patronage of

Lord Sidmouth Viscount Sidmouth, of Sidmouth in the County of Devon, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 12 January 1805 for the former prime minister, Henry Addington. In May 1804, King George III intended to confer the titles ...

and his colleagues"; some later historians have treated them as relatively mild gestures towards law and order, only tentatively enforced.

The setting, and the passing of the acts

Following the

Yeomanry Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Army, British Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Army Reserve, descended from volunteer British Cavalry, cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units serve in a variety of ...

killing of unarmed men and women in St Peter's Field (

Peterloo The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Fifteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamen ...

), a wave of protest meetings swept the North of England, spilling over into the Midlands and the Lowlands, and involving in all some seventeen counties. Local magistrates appealed in the face of the protests for central support; and in response the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

was reconvened on 23 November and the new acts were introduced by the Home Secretary,

Henry Addington Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, (30 May 175715 February 1844) was an English Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804. Addington is best known for obtaining the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, an ...

. By 30 December the legislation was passed, despite the opposition of the Whigs to both their principles and many of their details. The acts were aimed at gagging radical

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s, preventing large meetings, and reducing what the government saw as the possibility of armed insurrection. During the Commons debates, each of the parties appealed to the example of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

to make their case. The Tories pointed to the weakness of the French forces of law and order; the Whigs, conversely, to the need for the safety valve of free speech and a free press. Strengthened by their success at the 1818 elections, the Whigs were able to make three significant amendments to the bills as originally proposed: public meetings were to be allowed behind closed doors, and the ban on outside meetings was to be limited in time; transportation of Press offenders was made more difficult; and the curtailment of legal delays was extended to include prosecution as well as defendant. Nevertheless, the Six Acts were eventually passed by

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

and his colleagues, as part of their repressive approach focused on preventing a British revolution.

Details of the acts

The six acts were: *The ''Training Prevention Act'', now known as the

Unlawful Drilling Act 1819 The Unlawful Drilling Act 1819 (60 Geo 3 & 1 Geo 4 c 1), 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. This Act was excluded by artic ...

(60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 1), made any person attending a meeting for the purpose of receiving training or drill in weapons liable to arrest and

transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...

. More simply stated, military training of any sort was to be conducted only by municipal bodies and above. *The ''Seizure of Arms Act'' (60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 2) gave local

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

s the powers, within the disturbed counties, to search any private property for weapons and seize them and arrest the owners. *The ''Misdemeanours Act'' (60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 4) attempted to increase the speed of the administration of justice by reducing the opportunities for

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries ...

and allowing for speedier court processing. *The '' Seditious Meetings Act'' (60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 6) required the permission of a

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

or magistrate in order to convene any

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

meeting A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision making. Defini ...

of more than 50 people if the subject of that meeting was concerned with "church or state" matters. Additional people could not attend such meetings unless they were inhabitants of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

. *The ''

Blasphemous Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religio ...

and Seditious Libels Act'' (or ''Criminal Libel Act'') (60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 8)", toughened the existing laws to provide for more punitive sentences for the authors of such writings. The maximum sentence was increased to fourteen years'

. *The ''Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act'' (60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV c. 9) extended and increased taxes to cover those publications which had escaped duty by publishing opinion and not news. Publishers were also required to post a

bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...

for their behaviour.

Repeal of the acts, and their influence

Different time-scales applied to the different acts. *The prohibition of drilling was maintained into the twentieth century, and only repealed in 2008.History features (BBC)
/ref> *By contrast, the seizure of arms was set up to elapse after 27 months; while the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act had a five-year time limit built in, and was repealed in 1824. * G. M. Trevelyan considered that "The most lasting injury to the community was done by the Act imposing a four-penny stamp on all periodical publications"—a charge reduced (to a penny) in 1836, before such taxes on knowledge finally vanished mid-century. The Six Acts went down in folk history, alongside Peterloo, as symbols of the repressive nature of the Pittite regime.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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