Making of Bread, etc. Act 1800 facts for kids
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| Long title | An Act to prevent, until the sixth Day of November one thousand eight hundred and one, and from thence to the End of six Weeks from the Commencement of the then next Session of Parliament, the manufacturing of any Fine Flour from Wheat, or other Grain, and the making of any Bread solely from the Fine Flour of Wheat; and to repeal an Act, passed in the thirty-sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for permitting Bakers to make and sell certain Sorts of Bread, and to make more effectual Provision for the same. |
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| Dates | |
| Royal Assent | 24 March 1801 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealing legislation | Statute Law Revision Act 1872 |
| Status: Repealed | |
The Making of Bread Act 1800, also called the Making of Bread, etc. Act 1800 and more formally the Act 41 Geo. 3. c. 16 (U.K.), was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that prohibited millers from producing any flour other than wholemeal flour.
Contents
Background
The Act was introduced as one of a series of measures to deal with a severe food shortage, caused at least partly by the poor wheat harvest of 1799. Labourers and their families at that time lived very largely on bread, the price of which could account for more than half of their weekly wages.
The Act
The Act directed that only wholemeal flour was to be produced.
Effect
The Act proved to be very unpopular, and impossible to enforce. So concerned was the government by the civil unrest that resulted, the Act was repealed after less than two months. One account from Horsham, in Sussex, demonstrates the depth of public feeling:
A number of women ... proceeded to Gosden wind-mill, where, abusing the miller for having served them with brown flour, they seized on the cloth with which he was then dressing meal according to the directions of the Bread Act, and cut it into a thousand pieces; threatening at the same time to serve all similar utensils he might in future attempt to use in the same manner.
See also
