Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, ensures the…
July 1823 CE
The Black Act (9 Geo. 1 c. 22), an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, had been passed in 1723 in response to a series of raids by two groups of poachers, known as the Blacks.
Arising in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble's collapse and the ensuing economic downturn, the Blacks had gained their name from their habit of blacking their faces when undertaking poaching raids.
Their activities had quickly led to the introduction of the Black Act to Parliament on April 26, 1723; it had come into force on May 27.
The Act had introduced the death penalty for over fifty criminal offenses, including being found in a forest while disguised.
Efforts to repeal it had started in 1810, with comments by William Grant as part of a wider debate on penal reform; a formal recommendation for its repeal took almost a decade, with the publication of the Report on Criminal Laws in 1819 marking the first "official" suggestion that the law be removed from the statute books.
Following the publication of the Report, Sir James Mackintosh introduced a law reform bill that would have repealed the Act, but although it passed through the House of Commons successfully it was strongly opposed in the Lords.
In early 1823 he had submitted a memo to the House of Commons, again suggesting the repeal of the Act, and a few months later Robert Peel had introduced a bill that repeals the entirety of the Black Act except for the provisions that criminalize setting fire to houses and shooting a person.
This had passed, and comes into effect on July 8, 1823.
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