__NOTOC__ King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

's Royal Proclamation For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality exhorted the British public against

sexually explicit material Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

. It called for the suppression of all "loose and licentious Prints, Books, and Publications, dispersing Poison to the minds of the Young and Unwary and to Punish the Publishers and Vendors thereof". Groups which promoted it included the Proclamation Society, which became The

Society for the Suppression of Vice The Society for the Suppression of Vice, formerly the Proclamation Society Against Vice and Immorality, or simply Proclamation Society, was a 19th-century English society dedicated to promoting public morality. It was established in 1802, based o ...

which was instituted in 1802 to "check the spread of open vice and immorality, and more especially to preserve the minds of the young from contamination by exposure to the corrupting influence of impure and licentious books, prints, and other publications". This had little effect, because they had no power to destroy the material. It was issued on 1 June 1787 – after

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

and Bishop Porteous agreed to solicit (in the words of one source) "a Royal Proclamation such as earlier sovereigns had used in times of moral crisis". However, according to one source, it was first "made a legal document" during the reign of Queen Anne; it was "Given at our court at St. James" on 25 February 1702 ( N.S. 1703) by Queen Anne in the first year of her reignand secretary Lord Bolingbroke was "the instrument of introducing it into the House of Commons". This version issued by King George III was to be read four times a year in churches, and was still being published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in c. 1818. An editorialist writing in 1820 commented that:

Overruled

The next law on sexually explicit material, the

Obscene Publications Act Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by Lord ...

(introduced in September 1857 by Lord Campbell, the Lord Chief Justice) replaced this proclamation.

References

{{Reflist 1787 documents 1787 in law 1787 in Great Britain Law of the United Kingdom George III of the United Kingdom Encouragement of Piety and Virtue Works about pornography

Overruled

See also

Further reading

References