1258    â€œProvisions of Oxfordâ€� setting up first Parliament.
1285    Statute of Winchester ordered that Fairs and Markets were to be no longer held in Church Yards.
1662    Act of Uniformity. Rev. Saunders was turned out of his living for refusing to read the act in church.
1663    The first Turnpike Act.
1693    National Debt established.
1798    Income Tax first imposed.
1807    Abolition of the Slave trade.
1809    The Ducking Stool was used in England for the last time.
1815    Corn Laws instituted.
1819    Act of parliament passed for the cutting of the Holsworthy to Bude Canal.
1834    Poor Law Act led to the building of Workhouses.
1837    Pillories abolished.
1846    Corn Laws repealed.
1861    Ann Earl was the last person in England to be put in the stocks. Magistrate John Vowler said he was at a loss to know how to prevent her from standing on her head for a glass of gin and doing cartwheels for a glass of beer.
1863    Bread and Ale Assizes abolished.
1870    The Conscience Clause was added to the Education Act. It allowed children to be withdrawn from religious instruction in a church school if the parents so wished.
1870    Forster’s Education Act. Setting up districts for elementary schools. Boards were established to administer these schools and so the first Board Schools came into being.
1875    Public Health Act passed.
1879    Ground Game Act introduced. Thomas Petherick and Stephen Sloggett were imprisoned in Exeter for killing a hare on land their fathers rented. (All game belonged to the landowner). There was such a hue and cry about the incident that questions were asked in Parliament and the law was changed to allow tenants to kill ground game. When the pair were released they were met by crowds of people and carried shoulder high through the city whilst the band played. This law made a great difference to tenants as they could then kill ground game for their own consumption or to sell. Many a tenant paid his rent with money made by killing such game.
1880    School attendance to the age of 10 became law. However if a childs attendance had been poor then he or she was required to stay longer.
1883    Act of Parliament passed to allow building of the Holsworthy to Bude railway. (Acts 46 & 47).
1889    The Board of Education was established and empowered to levy a 1d. rate to provide technical education.
1889    Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act.
1890    Housing of The Working Classes Act was passed.
1890    April 9th. Secretary of State altered the April 15th–l6th and September 20th–2lst Fairs to be one-day Fairs.
1900    April lst. Holsworthy became an Urban District and a new parish of Holsworthy Hamlets was formed, due to the Local Government Board Order.
1902    Local authorities were empowered to provide secondary education under the Balfour Act.
1906    The Education (Provision of Meals) Act passed.
1918    The school-leaving age was raised to 14.
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 * Indicates an addition to the original by Tony

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