Witchcraft Act of 1736

The Witchcraft Act (9 Geo. II c. 5) was a law passed by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment, turning the crime of witchcraft into prison sentences.

It thus marks the end point of the period Witch trials in the Early Modern period for Great Britain and the beginning of the "modern legal history of witchcraft", repealing the Witchcraft Acts which were based on a widespread belief in the genuine existence of magic and witchcraft.

The law was reverting to the view of the medieval Church that witchcraft and magic were illusory, treating as an offence not the supposed practice of witchcraft but the superstitious belief in its existence. The Act reflected the general trend in Europe, where after a peak in the mid-17th century, and a series of late outbursts in the late 17th century, witch-trials quickly subsided after 1700. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne in 1727.

Initially presented to the House of Commons on 27 January 1735/6 by John Conduitt, John Crosse and Alderman George Heathcote, the Act received Royal Assent on 24 March and came into effect on 24 June. In the words of Davies (1999), the new law meant that witchcraft was "no longer to be considered a criminal act, but rather an offence against the country's newly enlightened state". Up until 1772, it was illegal for the newspapers to report on parliamentary debates, meaning that there is a lack of archival material on the parliamentary debate on the implementation of the Act. According to Davies (1999), it appears that the Act "generated only a modicum of debate" within parliament, with several amendments being suggested in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The only figure to offer significant opposition to the Act was Lord James Erskine (1679–1754). Erskine not only fervently believed in the existence of witchcraft, but, it has been argued, also held beliefs that were deeply rooted in "Scottish political and religious considerations" and which caused him to reject the Act. His objection to the Act "marked him out as an eccentric verging on the insane" among Members of Parliament, and in turn his political opponents would use it against him; one of his staunchest critics, Robert Walpole, who was then the de facto Prime Minister of the country, allegedly stating that he no longer considered Erskine to be a serious political threat as a result of his embarrassing opposition to the Act.

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