Important Victorian Legislation
From Commonplace Book
Bills
- Roman Catholic Relief Act (1829) - Catholic emancipation - hot topic at start of Middlemarch
- Reform Act (1832)
- Ten Hour Bill (1832) - Sadler - trying to regulate industrial labor - opposed by industrialists like those depicted in North and South (Gaskell, 1855) (intro xviii)
- Slavery Abolition Act (1833)
- New Poor Law (late 30s) -- criticized in Oliver Twist
- repeal of Corn Laws (1846) - more free trade
- Taxes on knowledge - reform in 1850s-60s (Attridge Conrad 2010)
- Contagious Diseases Acts (1864)
- Second Reform Act (1867)
- Education Acts (starting 1870)
- Married Woman's Property Act (1882)
- Settled Lands Act (1882) - broke the estate entail system (see MacGregor 1997 for art collecting implications)
Terminology
- Entail: "Entail was a legal term meaning that a landed estate was tied up in such a way that the person inheriting it would have only its income -- and could not sell or mortgage it. Along with primogeniture, it was the legal basis of the British aristocracy'a ability to transmit their great estates intact down through the centuries." (Daniel Pool 1993 p. 304)
