Pedlars Act 1871
| Year | 1871 |
Pedlars Act, 1871
(34 & 35 Vict.) CHAP. 96.
An Act for granting Certificates to Pedlars.
[21st August 1871]
W HEREAS it is expedient to amend the law relating to pedlars:
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:
Preliminary.
1 Short title.
1. This Act may be cited as ThePedlars Act, 1871.
2 Commencement of Act.
2. This Act shall not come into operation until the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, which date is in this Act referred to as the commencement of this Act.
3 Interpretation of certain terms in this Act.
3. In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context, the following terms have the meanings herein-after respectively assigned to them; that is to say,
The term ‘pedlar’ means any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs, or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden, travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men's houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or procuring orders for goods, wares, or merchandise immediately to be delivered, or selling or offering for sale his skill in handicraft:
The term ‘police district’ means any of the districts mentioned in schedule one to this Act, and the term ‘chief officer of police’ with reference to any police district means the officer mentioned in relation to that district in the said schedule, and such schedule with the notes thereto shall have effect as if it were enacted in this section:
The term ‘Summary Jurisdiction Acts’ means as follows:
As to England, the Act of the session of the eleventh and twelfth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter forty-three, intituled ‘An Act to facilitate the performance of the duties of justices of the peace out of sessions within England and Wales with respect to summary convictions and orders,’ and any Acts amending the same:
As to Scotland, ‘The Summary Procedure Act, 1864:’
As to Ireland, within the police district of Dublin metropolis, the Acts regulating the powers and duties of justices of the peace for such district, or of the police of such district; and elsewhere in Ireland, ‘The Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851,’ and any Act amending the same:
The term ‘Court of Summary Jurisdiction’ means and includes any justice or justices of the peace, sheriff or sheriff substitute, metropolitan police magistrate, stipendiary or other magistrate, or officer, by whatever name called, to whom jurisdiction is given by the Summary Jurisdiction Acts or any Acts therein referred to, or to proceedings before whom the provisions of the Summary Jurisdiction Acts are or may be made applicable.
Certificates to be obtained by Pedlars.
4 No one to act as a pedlar without certificate.
4. No person shall act as a pedlar without such certificate as in this Act mentioned, or in any district where he is not authorised by his certificate so to act.
Any person who—
(1) (1.) acts as a pedlar without having obtained a certificate under this Act authorising him so to act; or
(2) (2.) acts as a pedlar in any district in which he is not authorised so to act by a certificate under this Act,
shall be liable for a first offence to a penalty not exceeding ten shillings, and for any subsequent offence to a penalty not exceeding one pound.
5 Grant of certificate.
5. The following regulations shall be made with respect to the grant of pedlars certificates:
1. Subject as in this Act mentioned, a pedlar's certificate shall be granted to any person by the chief officer of police of the police district in which the person applying for a certificate has, during one month previous to such application, resided, on such officer being satisfied that the applicant is above seventeen years of age, is a person of good character, and in good faith intends to carry on the trade of a pedlar:
2. An application for a pedlar's certificate shall be in the form specified in schedule two to this Act, or as near thereto as circumstances admit:
3. There shall be paid for a pedlar's certificate previously to the delivery thereof to the applicant a fee of five shillings:
4. A pedlar's certificate shall be in the form specified in schedule two to this Act, or as near thereto as circumstances admit:
5. A pedlar's certificate shall remain in force for one year from the date of the issue thereof, and no longer:
6. On the delivery up of the old certificate, or on sufficient evidence being produced to the satisfaction of the chief officer of police that the old certificate has been lost, that officer may, either at the expiration of the current year, or during the currency of any year, grant a new certificate in the same manlier as upon a first application for a pedlar's certificate. In Great Britain one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and in Ireland the Lord Lieutenant or other chief governor or governors of Ireland for the time being, may from time to time provide for the expiration of all pedlars certificates at the same period of each year, and in doing so shall provide for the apportionment of the fees payable in respect of any such certificate.
6 Effect of certificate.
6. A pedlar's certificate granted under this Act shall, during the time for which it continues in force, authorise the person to whom it is granted to act as a pedlar within the police district in which the certificate is taken out.
For the purpose of the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act, 1847, and any Act incorporating the same, a certificate under this Act shall have the same effect, within the district for which it is granted, as a hawker's license, and the term ‘licensed hawker’ in the first-mentioned Act shall be construed to include a pedlar holding such a certificate.
7 Extension of certificate by indorsement to other districts than that for which it was granted.
7. Any pedlar who, having obtained a pedlar's certificate, desires to act as a pedlar in any other police district than that in which the certificate is taken out, may, while his certificate remains in force, apply to the chief officer of police of such other district to indorse his certificate, and such officer shall, if satisfied that the applicant is above seventeen years of age, is a person of good character, and in good faith intends to carry on the trade of a pedlar, and on payment by the pedlar of a fee not exceeding sixpence, indorse such certificate, and such indorsed certificate shall, while it continues in force, authorise the pedlar to act as a pedlar in such other district, and have in all respects the same effect as a certificate granted under this Act by an officer of such district to a person resident therein would have.
The indorsement shall be in the form specified in schedule two to this Act, or as near thereto as circumstances admit.
8 Register of certificates to be kept in each district.
8. There shall be kept in each police district a register of the certificates and of the indorsement of certificates granted and made in such district under this Act, in such form and with such particulars as may from time to time be directed in Great Britain by one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and in Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant or other chief governor or governors of Ireland for the time being.
The entries in such register, and any copy of any of such entries, certified by the chief officer of police to be a true copy, shall be evidence of the facts stated...
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