Folio, (approximately 275 x 185 mm). 93 volumes, including 5,190 Acts. Bound in contemporary, virtually uniform, calf with the arms of the City of Aberdeen to the upper covers of most volumes. Some age wear as reasonably expected, generally the books are sound with some recent professional restorations to extremities, joints, heads and toes of spines, etc., where it was necessary, recently professionally cleaned and polished. Contents generally fresh and clean, without any significant foxing or damp-staining, exceptional set overall.

American contents:

The United States of America’s rise from a string of far-western colonies to a sovereign state is mapped comprehensively. Tensions in the Americas arguably began with the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which barred American colonists from settling further west of a line closely circumscribing existing colonial boundaries. A year later, the Sugar Act and Currency Act (both vol. VI) heightened unrest by hampering the already struggling economies of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1765, the Stamp Act (vol. VII) passed into law, imposing a tax on printed goods and documents, payable only in British currency. The response was enormous, culminating in the Stamp Act Congress, whose united voices issued the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Parliament was petitioned, and when it became clear that the Act was harming British mercantile interests in the Colonies, it was repealed. Soon after, however, the Declaratory Act (vol. VIII) reasserted British authority in America. To Britain, control over the Colonies was essential. A succession of failed harvests, combined with large-scale grain exports, had led to soaring corn prices and riots across Britain. In response, Parliament abolished import duties on “Corn and Grain” from America (vol. VIII), followed by the removal of duties on wheat and wheat flour (vol. IX), and later on other American grains including rice and maize (vol. X). America was simply too valuable for Britain to lose. The Townshend Acts of 1767 and 1768 introduced further measures to curb colonial dissent and extract greater profit from His Majesty’s American possessions. The Revenue Act (vol. IX) placed taxes on several goods, including tea, and introduced Writs of Assistance allowing property searches in cases of suspected smuggling. Passed concurrently, the Commissioners of Customs Act (vol. IX) sought to enforce compliance with British customs laws. The Indemnity Act (vol. IX) waived import duties on tea imported by the East India Company, undercutting smuggled Dutch tea that threatened British revenue. The New York Restraining Act (vol. IX) suspended the New York Assembly’s legislative authority until it complied with the Quartering Act of 1765 (vol. VII). The last of the Townshend Acts, the Vice Admiralty Court Act (vol. X) of 1768, replaced colonial courts with admiralty courts to more effectively punish and prevent smuggling. These Acts were later repealed except for the Indemnity Act, which in 1773 was amended and continued as the Tea Act (vol. XVII), prompting the Boston Tea Party. Parliament retaliated with the Boston Port Act (vol. XIX), closing the harbour until the destroyed tea was paid for. This was the first of the five Intolerable Acts that directly precipitated the Declaration of Independence and the outbreak of war in 1776. Soon followed the Massachusetts Government Act and the Administration of Justice Act (both vol. XIX). The former tightened royal control over Massachusetts, while the latter permitted royal officials accused of offences in America to be tried elsewhere. The next Intolerable Act was the Quartering Act (vol. XX) which reiterated provisions from the earlier Act. Finally came the Quebec Act (vol. XX), expanding the province’s boundaries into territory now part of the United States. These measures brought the Colonies to the brink of rebellion, and when Parliament, angered by New York’s non-compliance with the Quartering Act, passed the New England Restraining Act (vol. XXI) in 1775, banning trade with New England, war finally broke out. Years of fighting followed, as France, Spain, and the United Provinces of the Netherlands joined the conflict against Britain. In 1782, George III gave assent to the American Colonies Peace Act (vol. XXXIV), allowing negotiations that culminated in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Later that year, the Trade with America Act (vol. XXXV) was passed, formally recognising the United States and reopening trade.

In other spheres, the British Empire continued to develop. Shown in these Acts is the amazing variety of luxury goods flowing into and through Britain from around the world. Sugar and Tobacco from the West Indies arrived in British ports to be warehoused alongside Teas and Silks from China. However, stowed between tea chests and sugar barrels British merchants often found room for human cargo. The British slave trade and its abolition is also documented in these Acts. In this time African slaves passed as freely from port to port as any other exotic merchandise and it wasn’t until the Slave Trade Act of 1788 that this trade was in any way regulated. This Act only temporarily limited the number of slaves that could be carried on board a trading vessel and whilst British slavers would face further regulations in the years following, it was only in 1807 that the trade was truly abolished. However, long after George III’s death, slaves were still working the plantations of the British Empire.

Britain and Ireland also underwent great change. Physically, the British Isles were transformed. By his death in 1820, George III’s now united Kingdom was cut with snaking canals and bristled with groaning mills. Coal and cheap iron flowed into burning furnaces, allowing British manufacturers to produce with great speed and quantity goods to be exported across the world.

James Watt’s steam engine, its invention marked in an Act of the twenty-first volume of this collection, greatly encouraged this growth of industry. Textiles were one of Britain’s biggest exports and their manufacture was greatly increased by Watt’s machine. Handloom weavers were very quickly driven out of work and in retaliation broke machines and burned mills. Parliament’s response was a series of punitive Acts, ensuring harsh and ‘exemplary’ punishment for these Luddites. The revolt was extinguished, and with it an older, slower world.

This collection also contains fascinating details of the East India Company and the long process by which it was gradually subsumed by the British Crown. By 1773, the Company was failing. Smuggling in the Americas had severely reduced its income, and the British Government eager to safeguard its future, introduced the Regulating Act (vol. XVIII), overhauling its organisation and drawing it closer into British control. However, this did little to abate concerns surrounding the Company’s inefficiency in governing its Indian territories. In 1784, Prime Minister Pitt the Younger sought to remedy this with his India Act (vol. XXXVII), which more firmly subordinated the Company to the Crown by appointing six Privy Councillors to the newly created Board of Control. The final major reorganisation of the East India Company during George III’s reign came in 1813 with the Charter Act (vol. LXXX), which renewed the Company’s charter but restricted its monopoly to China and the trade in opium and tea. War with France had placed enormous financial pressure on Britain, and merchants who were unable to trade with much of Europe demanded the destruction of the Company’s monopoly in India. Once again, the Company’s authority was curtailed and brought further under direct British oversight.

Another significant movement of George III’s reign was the abolition of the slave trade. Abolitionism had been largely a fringe movement until David Hartley tabled a motion in the House of Commons in 1776 to end Britain’s involvement in the movement of human chattel. Hartley’s motion failed and it wasn’t until over a decade later that any sort of regulation was placed on British slaving practices. The Zong massacre of 1781, in which the crew of a British slaving ship threw one hundred and thirty African slaves overboard, provoked widespread outrage and strengthened the abolitionist cause. By 1788, sufficient pressure had built for Parliament to pass the first Slave Trade Act (vol. XLI), regulating the number of slaves permitted aboard trading vessels. Later that year, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade published its famous plan of the slave ship Brookes, illustrating the continued horrors permitted under the new rules. Eleven more years of campaigning led to the second Slave Trade Act (vol. LVIII) in 1799, which required slaving vessels to be exclusively registered for that purpose and imposed stricter limits on the number of individuals transported. These regulations were to be enforced by Customs Officers. Seven years later, the third Slave Trade Act (vol. LXIX) of 1807 abolished the trade altogether, outlawing the sale and purchase of slaves and establishing penalties for violators. Parliament subsequently strengthened enforcement through numerous amendments and secured agreements with Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands to end the trade in their own territories (vols. XCI & XCII). Inpractice, however, these agreemen s varied in effectiveness, and in Spain and Portugal the illegal trade persisted. In Britain, slavery itself was only abolished in 1833.

The Acts also detail the swift progress of the industrial revolution as well as evidence of the growing pains of a rapidly changing society. One of the earliest inventions mentioned in this collection is found in an Act encouraging John Harrison to make more available his invention of the marine chronometer (vol. V). This was a crucial step in the British Government’s mission to increase the ease and efficiency of ocean travel. A great number of Acts offering rewards for discoveries and the conducting of experiment in this vein were passed by Parliament, the last being in 1818 (vol. XCI). Another important invention that finds direct reference in the Acts is James Watt’s steam engine (vol. XXII). This machine was the centrepiece of the British industrial revolution, allowing for the automation of many tasks previously found to be slow and laborious.

Watt’s invention allowed manufactured goods to be produced much faster and in much greater quantities. Textiles were one manufacture greatly improved by the advent of steam power, however, this was not the view of all. This set contains a number of punitive acts aimed to curb the Luddite movement that set about breaking machines and burning mills, primarily in the North of England.

The 1812 Frame Breaking Act (vol. LXXVII) declared the interfering with and destruction of mechanised looms a hangable offence. Shortly followed by two more dissuasive Acts, the revolt was quelled and the handloom weavers and many other craftsmen of the old order were put out of work.

Each regnal year is fully accounted for (save the two months of George the III’s final Parliament which actually became George IV’s first in 1820). Occasionally Acts are missing and unaccounted for by the Table or list of contents that accompanies most years, these omissions would have been made at the point of binding these volumes and often betray a Scottish interest in retaining acts relevant to Scotland whilst removing those that are not.

Beyond these great narratives, this collection is filled with thousands of Acts worthy of closer inspection. This list includes more famous acts such as the two Acts concerning Napoleon’s confinement to the Island of St Helena (vol. LXXXVII) and the Regency Act (vol. LXXVI) in which the ailing King finally cedes power to his son, the later George IV. However, lowlier Acts such as those concerning parish organisation and land taxation are filled with fascinating tables, charts, oaths, street-plans, exemplar registers, and lottery tickets. Every Act reveals something new of King George III’s long reign and offers a vivid glimpse into the daily workings of government and society during a period of extraordinary change.

This collection offers a panoramic view of King George III’s sixty year reign. Reading through these Acts, the scale and pace of the changing world of this early region of modernity is palpable, revealing an empire continually reshaped by conflict, commerce, and the first stirrings of industrial power.

A five hundred and seventy-four page list of the titles of each Act of Parliament contained in this collection is available upon request.

Provenance: these Acts were compiled and bound for the Royal Burgh of Aberdeen, bearing their arms on the front and back boards until 1792 and the town’s motto of Bon Accord on the bottom of the backstrip thereafter. It is likely then that these were originally housed in the old Tollbooth from which Aberdeen was governed until the construction of the larger town house complex in the 19th century. This being the case, it is also likely that the medieval library that these were to be stowed away in was not overly gifted with shelf space and the incidental removal of Acts deemed less interesting to a Scottish readership would have been an easy way of slimming the collection down so that it fitted into its designated place.