Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871

The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 32) is an Act of Parliament|Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by W. E. Gladstone's Liberal Government. It was passed on the same day as the Trade Union Act 1871.[1]

Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871
Act of Parliament
Long titleAn Act to amend the Criminal Law relating to Violence, Threats, and Molestation.
Citation34 & 35 Vict. c. 32
Dates
Royal assent29 June 1871
Other legislation
Repeals/revokes
Repealed byConspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

William Edward Hartpole Lecky described the Act's implications:

...[the Act] inflicted a punishment of three months' imprisonment, with hard labour, on any one who attempts to coerce another for trade purposes by the use of personal violence; by such threats as would justify a magistrate in binding a man to keep the peace; or by persistently following a person about from place to place, hiding his tools, clothes, or other property, watching and besetting his house, or following him along any street or road with two or more other persons in a disorderly manner. These last clauses were directed against the practice of picketing...[2]

It was repealed by Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative Government in 1875, which legalised picketing with their Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 (this Act was repealed by section 17 of that Act) and Employers and Workmen Act 1875.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Am Baile - Election Literature, 1874: "Charles Fraser MacKintosh - the Workmen's Candidate"". Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 19 July 2006.
  2. ^ William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Democracy and Liberty: Volume II (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981), pp. 376-7.