Private legislation: Function and procedure in the eighteenth century

This project examines the rules, procedures and practices for the prosecution of private legislation in the English and later British parliament of the eighteenth century. The products of private legislation substantially altered the physical, economic and social landscapes of England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But, no sustained study of the relationship between parliament's internal procedures and the expansion of these products during the century has been undertaken. This project, drawing primarily from the materials in the Journals of both houses of parliament, endeavors to fill this gap. It argues that the rules, procedures and practices of parliament permitted the effective functioning of its private business on behalf of a variety of interests. This effective functioning encouraged the expansion of private business during the century. Further, these rules, procedures and practices enabled parliament to extend subtly its supremacy into the localities, setting the stage for the development of general domestic legislation in the nineteenth century Finally, they bolstered parliament's stability, by protecting necessary private business from the intrusion of exogenous matters early in the century and by aligning that business to the legitimating ideology of property as the century wore on.