Strict censorship over all publications was exercised by the Church prior to the Reformation, especially after the invention of printing which led to a proliferations of cheap books and other material.
After the Reformation, the right to control of the press passed to the government as part of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown.
In 1585 printing was restricted to London, Oxford and Cambridge. The Archbishop of canterbury, the Bishop of London and the Stationers Company exercised supervision over printers and publishers.
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| | Offenders were liable to imprisonment, fines, mutilation or death. |
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Under the Stuarts the Star Chamber exercised strict censorship of the press. The authors of Purtian publications such as Bastwick, Burton, Leighton and Prynne were severly punished.
The freedom after the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641 led to the publication of many pamphlets on the great questions of the day; between 1640 and 1660, over 30,000 pamphlets and newspapers appeared.
In 1643 the Long Parliament ordered its agents to aprehend authors and printers where necessary "to repress disorders in printing".
In his Aeropagitica of the following year, Milton supported the liberty of the press; "Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" and maintained that "the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience was above all liberties"
The Licensing Act of 1662 vested control of printing in the government. Printing was restricted to London, Oxford, Cambridge and York and the number of master printers was limited.
In 1679, the judges declared it an offence under common law to publish criticisms of the government without license. All newspapers with the exception of the official Gazette and Observer were stopped.
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| | These restrictions on the press led to the development of coffee-houses as a means of expressing public opinion. |
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In 1685 the Licensing Act was revived.
In 1695 the House of Commons refused to renew the Licensing Act.
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| | The freedom of the press in Britain does not result from any positive enactment of Parliament but rather on the fact that the censorship of the press was allowed to lapse in 1695 and never renewed. |
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The press was still restricted by the Stamp Duty on newspapers, the law of libel and by the punishment for improper publications. StampDuty on newspapers was removed in 1855 and the libel law was modified by Fox's Libel Act of 1792 and Lord campbell's Libel Act of 1843.
The freedom of publication was now only restricted by the right of a libelled person to sue for damages and by state prosecution for improper publications.
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| | The diminuation in the price of newspapers by the removal of Stamp Duty in 1861 made the press far more effective. |
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