Peel's Acts


Peel's Acts were Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. They consolidated provisions from a large number of earlier statutes which were then repealed. Their purpose was to simplify the criminal law. The term refers to the Home Secretary who sponsored them, Sir Robert Peel.
Some writers apply the term Peel's Acts to the series of acts passed between 1826 and 1832. Other writers apply the term Peel's Acts specifically to five of those acts, namely chapters 27 to 31 of the session 7 & 8 Geo. 4.
According to some writers, the Criminal Law Act 1826 was the first of Peel's Acts.
The acts were the product of a failed attempt to codify the criminal law.

Background

In the United Kingdom, acts of Parliament remain in force until expressly repealed. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the late 18th-century, raised questions about the system and structure of the common law and the poor drafting and disorder of the existing statute book.
In 1806, the Commission on Public Records passed a resolution requesting the production of a report on the best mode of reducing the volume of the statute book. From 1810 to 1825, The Statutes of the Realm was published, providing for the first time the authoritative collection of acts. In 1816, both Houses of Parliament passed resolutions that an eminent lawyer with 20 clerks be commissioned to make a digest of the statutes, which was declared "very expedient to be done". However, this was never done.
In 1822, Sir Robert Peel entered the cabinet as home secretary and in 1826 introduced a number of reforms to the English criminal law, which became known as Peel's Acts. This included efforts to modernise, consolidate and repeal provisions from a large number of earlier statutes, including:

The acts 7 & 8 Geo. 4. cc. 27 to 31

These acts are:
Similar provisions were made for Ireland:

The acts replaced by the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861

James Edward Davis said that the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861 are new editions of Peel's Acts. The acts listed below were replaced by the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. There were two separate sets of broadly identical acts for England and Ireland respectively.
The first four acts on this list consolidated 316 acts, representing almost four-fifths of all offences.

England

Ireland