Following the

Peterloo Massacre The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when the cavalry of the Yeomen charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who ...

on 16 August 1819, the

government of the United Kingdom His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

under

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. Before becoming Prime Minister he had been Foreign Secretary, ...

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 setting, and the passing of the acts

Following the

Yeomanry Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units and sub-units in the British Army Reserve which are descended from volunteer cavalry regiments that now serve in a variety of different roles. History Origins In the 1790s, following the ...

killing of unarmed men and women in St Peter's Field ( Peterloo), 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 of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

was reconvened on 23 November and the new acts were introduced by the Home Secretary, Henry Addington. 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 literature, periodical publication containing written News, 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 poli ...

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 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 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. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

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 ( 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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 Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

. More simply stated, military training of any sort was to be conducted only by

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...

bodies and above. *The ''Seizure of Arms Act'' ( 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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 judi ...

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. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

and allowing for speedier court processing. *The '' Seditious Meetings Act'' ( 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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, the , which is common ...

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 sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

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. Definiti ...

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 Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. *The ''

Blasphemous Blasphemy refers to an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of Reverence (emotion), reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred, or something considered Sanctity of life, inviolable. Some religions, especially Abrahamic o ...

and Seditious Libels Act'' (or ''Criminal Libel Act'') ( 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. 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 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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