Where to Find UK Historical Acts Online

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Justis

Among other things, Justis provides access to Acts of Parliament (United Kingdom) 1707 to present, and Acts of Parliament (England) 1235 to 1706. To access Justis, go to the Law Library website >> e-Resources >> Legislation >> Justis.

 

Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI)

This website provides access to both original and revised statutes back to the 1800s. The website address is http://www.legislation.gov.uk/browse. Search for the Act in question and click on the “Original” button to see the Act as it was originally enacted.

 

HeinOnline

HeinOnline has the Statutes of the Realm (1235-1713). To find these statutes, on the main page click on ‘English Reports’ and then chose ‘Statutes of the Realm.’ HeinOnline can be found on here: Law Library website >> e-Resources >> Research Tools and Reference Materials >> HeinOnline.

 

BAILII

BAILII has Irish legislation from 1922 and UK legislation from 1215 (please note that some years are missing). To find more detail about what exactly BAILII has for legislation, go to this URL: http://www.bailii.org/databases.html. From here you can click on the legislation link you prefer and then browse for legislation by year or do a search.

 

Legislation.gov.uk

This website is run by the National Archives on behalf of the Queen’s Printer. They have both original acts and revised acts. In terms of original acts, they have historical acts back to the 1260s in some cases. Please note that when you get to a page with acts listed, you will have to scroll through using either the bar near the top of the page under the dataset or by clicking through the appropriate page numbers in order to see all the acts available.

 

UK Statute Law Database

Along with newer acts, this database also has some older historical acts available. It seems to be limited in what it has, however. Go to http://www.legislation.gov.uk/browse and conduct a search. When you conduct a search you can limit your search to older or newer acts. You can also do an advanced search to see how a statute appeared at a specific point in time.

 

British History Online

On this website, they have full-text of older legislation, but the information as provided can be difficult to read. This should be used if you can’t find the act in question anywhere else. Go to http://www.british-history.ac.uk/subject.aspx?subject=6.

 

CA Cotter Aug 2010

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