Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved
Citation1892 c. 55,55 & 56 Vict. c. 55
Year1892


Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892

(55 & 56 Vict.) 55.

An Act for regulating the Police and Sanitary Administration of towns and populous places, and for facilitating the union of Police and Municipal Administration in burghs in Scotland.

[28th June 1892]

Whereas it is expedient to amend the laws relating to the police and sanitary administration of towns and populous places, and to facilitate the union of police and municipal administration in burghs in Scotland:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

S-1 Short title and extent.

1 Short title and extent.

1. This Act may be cited as theBurgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, and shall apply to Scotland only.

S-2 Commencement of Act.

2 Commencement of Act.

2. This Act shall come into operation, except so far as otherwise herein-after provided, on the fifteenth day of May one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, which date is herein-after called the commencement of this Act.

S-3 Division into parts.

3 Division into parts.

3. This Act is divided into parts as follows:—

Part I.—General.

Part II.—Constitution of Police Burghs.

Part III.—Police Force.

Part IV.—Police Administration.

Part V.—Rating and Borrowing Powers.

Part VI.—Offences and Penalties.

I GENERAL.

PART I.

GENERAL.

Definitions.

Definitions.

S-4 Definitions.

4 Definitions.

4. The following words and expressions in this Act shall have the meanings hereby assigned to them, unless there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction; that is to say,

(1) (1.) ‘Board of Supervision’ shall mean the Board of Supervision for the relief of the poor and of public health:

(2) (2.) ‘Broker’ shall include any person dealing in second-hand goods or articles, or in yarn or waste, or in other unwrought material, or in old metals, bones, or rags: Provided always, that wholesale dealers in rags, ropes, and waste, purchasing only from licensed brokers or licensed marine store dealers, or in quantities of not less than half a ton, shall not be included in this definition:

(3) (3.) ‘Building’ shall include any structure or erection of what kind and nature soever, and every part thereof:

(4) (4.) ‘Burgh,’ when used alone, unless otherwise expressed or inconsistent with the context, shall include royal burgh, parliamentary burgh, burgh incorporated by Act of Parliament, burgh of regality, burgh of barony, and any populous place or police burgh administered in whole or in part under any general or local Police Act or any burgh created under this Act:

(5) (5.) ‘Carriage’ shall include any coach, omnibus, tramway car, cab, chariot, fly, hansom, car, cabriolet, gig, brougham, waggon, timber-carriage, dray, truck, cart, hand-cart, wheelbarrow, hand-barrow, lorry, bicycle, tricycle, velocipede, or other vehicle used for the conveyance of persons, animals, or goods, and whether plying for hire or not:

(6) (6.) ‘Cattle’ shall include any horse, mare, gelding, foal, colt, filly, bull, cow, heifer, ox, calf, ass, mule, ram, ewe, wether, lamb, goat, kid, or swine:

(7) (7.) ‘Chief magistrate’ shall mean the lord provost, or provost, or in his absence the magistrate present next in seniority, according to priority of election as such, and also the magistrate temporarily acting as chief magistrate in any burgh:

(8) (8.) ‘Clerk,’‘treasurer,’ and ‘collector’ shall mean the clerk, treasurer, and collector respectively, appointed by the Commissioners under the provisions of this Act:

(9) (9.) ‘The Commissioners’ shall mean the Commissioners for the purposes of this Act, in their collective capacity, not being Commissioners appointed by the Secretary for Scotland for holding local inquiries under this Act:

(10) (10.) ‘Court,’ where by the context it applies to a space contiguous to buildings, shall mean a court or recess or area forming a common access to lands and premises separately occupied, including any common passage or entrance thereto:

(11) (11.) ‘Court of session’ shall mean either division of the Inner House thereof:

(12) (12.) ‘General Police Acts’ shall mean the Acts specified in Schedule I. of this Act:

(13) (13.) ‘House,’ where not otherwise expressed, shall mean dwelling-house, and shall include out-houses and other erections, being pertinents of the house:

(14) (14.) ‘Householder’ shall mean any occupier or inhabitant occupier of lands or premises whose occupancy would qualify him to vote for a member of Parliament fora burgh; and shall include any female occupier of lands or premises who would be entitled under the Municipal Elections Amendment (Scotland) Act, 1881, to vote at municipal elections:

(15) (15.) ‘Infectious disease’ shall mean and include cholera, small-pox, typhus, typhoid, scarlet, relapsing, continued, and puerperal fever, measles, scarlatina, and diphtheria, and such other disease as the Commissioners, with the approval of the Board of Supervision, or Her Majesty by Order in Council, may from time to time order, for the purposes of this Act, to be deemed infectious:

(16) (16.) ‘Lands and premises’ shall include all lands, springs, rights of servitude, dwelling-houses, shops, warehouses, vaults, cellars, stables, breweries, manufactories, mills, and the fixed or attached machinery therein, yards, places, and other heritages specified or included in the Acts for the valuation of lands and heritages in Scotland in force for the time being:

(17) (17.) ‘Local Police Act’ shall mean any Act other than the General Police Acts providing for the watching, lighting, paving, draining, cleansing, or, improving of a burgh, or incorporating any portion of the General Police Acts,but shall not include any Act dealing exclusively with harbours, markets, or slaughter-houses, water supply, gas supply, sewerage, tramways, or financial arrangements, or such part of any Act dealing mainly with these subjects as relates exclusively to them:

(18) (18.) ‘Lord Ordinary’ shall mean any Lord Ordinary in the Outer House of the Court of Session:

(19) (19.) ‘Magistrate’ shall mean a magistrate or judge having jurisdiction under this Act.

(20) (20.) ‘Magistrates’ shall include the lord provost or provost:

(21) (21.) ‘Occupier’ shall mean tenant or sub-tenant, or any person in the actual occupancy; and shall not include a lodger, or a person in the occupation as tenant of a furnished house let for a less period than one year; but shall include the person by whom such furnished house is so let:

(22) (22.) ‘Owner’ shall include joint owner, fiar, life-renter, feuar, or other person in the actual possession of or entitled to receive the rents of lands, and premises of every tenure or description, and the factor, agent, or commissioner of such persons, or any of them, or any other person, who shall intromit with or draw the rents:

(23) (23.) ‘Parliamentary burgh’ shall mean a burgh having the right of sending or contributing to send a member to Parliament:

(24) (24.) ‘Police Act, 1857,’ shall mean the Act passed in the twentieth and twenty-first years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter seventy-two:

(25) (25.) ‘Police burgh’ shall mean a populous place the boundaries whereof have been fixed under the General Police Acts or under any Local Police Act or under this Act:

(26) (26.) ‘Populous place’ shall mean any town, village, place, or locality, containing a population of seven hundred inhabitants or upwards, not being administered under any general or local Police Act; and for the purposes of this Act, two or more contiguous towns, villages, places, or localities, not being burghs, may be held to be a populous place:

(27) (27.) ‘Private court’ shall mean a court maintained or liable to be maintained by persons other than the Commissioners:

(28) (28.) ‘Private street’ shall mean any street maintained or liable to be maintained by persons other than the Commissioners:

(29) (29.) ‘Public Health Acts’ shall mean the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1867, and any Act amending the same:

(30) (30.) ‘Sheriff’ shall include sheriff-substitute, except as regards (1) the duty of fixing and extending boundaries, (2) the compulsory acquisition of land, (3) any proceeding under section fifteen of this Act:

(31) (31.) ‘Street’ shall include any road, highway, bridge, quay, lane, square, court, alley, close, wynd, vennel, thoroughfare, and public passage or other place within the burgh used either by carts or foot passengers, and not being or forming part of any harbour, railway, or canal station, dept, wharf, towing-path, or bank.

Application of the Act.

Application of the Act.

S-5 Places to which Act shall apply.

5 Places to which Act shall apply.

(1)5.—(1.) This Act shall apply—

(a. ) From its commencement to every existing burgh, with the exception of the burghs named in Schedule II. of this Act, and

(b. ) To every burgh created under this Act from the date when its creation is recorded in the sheriff court books.

(2) (2.) In the burghs to which this Act applies, this Act shall, except as herein-after provided, supersede and come in the place of the general or local Police Acts, and all local Police Acts applicable to such burghs are hereby repealed, except such portion, of the Acts mentioned in the first column of Schedule III. of this Act as are specified in the third column thereof: Provided that where any of the provisions of a general Police Act are incorporated in the portions so excepted, such unrepealed portions shall be read as if in lieu of the reference to such provisions of a general Police Act there were substituted a reference to the corresponding provisions of this Act; and where in any Act it is provided that any rates, assessments, or charges may be levied, collected, or recovered under any...

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