Married Women's Property Act 1870
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1870 c. 93 |
| Year | 1870 |
Married Women's Property Act, 1870
(33 & 34 Vict.) CHAP 93.
An Act to amend the Law relating to the Property of Married Women.
[9th August 1870]
W HEREAS it is desirable to amend the law of property and contract with respect to married women:
Be it 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:
1 Earnings of married women to be deemed their own property.
1. The wages and earnings of any married woman acquired or gained by her after the passing of this Act in any employment, occupation, or trade in which she is engaged or which she carries on separately from her husband, and also any money or property so acquired by her through the exercise of any literary, artistic, or scientific skill, and all investments of such wages, earnings, money, or property, shall be deemed and taken to be property held and settled to her separate use, independent of any husband to whom she may be married, and her receipts alone shall be a good discharge for such wages, earnings, money, and property.
2 Deposits in savings banks by a married woman to be deemed her separate property.
2. Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in the Act of the tenth year of George the Fourth, chapter twenty-four, enabling the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to grant life annuities and annuities for terms of years, or in the Acts relating to savings banks and post office savings banks, any deposit hereafter made and any annuity granted by the said Commissioners under any of the said Acts in the name of a married woman, or in the name of a woman who may marry after such deposit or grant, shall be deemed to be the separate property of suck woman, and the same shall be accounted for and paid to her as if she were an unmarried woman; providedthat if any such deposit is made by, or such annuity granted to, a married woman by means of moneys of her husband without his consent, the Court may, upon an application under section nine of this Act, order such deposit or annuity or any part thereof to be paid to the husband.
3 As to a married woman's property in the funds.
3. Any married woman, or any woman about to be married, may apply to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, or to the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland, by a form to be provided by the governor of each of the said banks and company for that purpose, that any sum forming part of the public stocks and funds, and not being less than twenty pounds, to which the woman so applying is entitled, or which she is about to acquire, may be transferred to or made to stand in the books of the governor and company to whom such application is made in the name or intended name of the woman as a married woman entitled to her separate use, and on such sum being entered in the books of the said governor and company accordingly the same shall be deemed to be the separate property of such woman, and shall be transferred and the dividends paid as if she were an unmarried woman; provided that if any such investment in the funds is made by a married woman by means of moneys of her husband without his consent, the Court may, upon an application under section nine of this Act, order such investment and the dividends thereof, or any part thereof, to be transferred and paid to the husband.
4 As to a married woman's property in a joint stock company.
4. Any married woman, or any woman about to be married, may apply in writing to the directors or managers of any in corporated or joint stock company that any fully paid up shares, or any debenture or debenture stock, or any stock of such company, to the holding of which no liability is attached, and to which the woman so applying is entitled, may be registered in the books of the said company in the name or intended name of the woman as a married woman entitled to her separate use, and it shall be the duty of such directors or managers to register such shares or stock accordingly, and the same upon being so registered shall be deemed to be the separate property of such woman, and shall be transferred and the dividends and profits paid as if she were an unmarried woman; provided that if any such investment as...
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