Short Title - History

History

Since the second half of the nineteenth century, short titles have become the usual method of referencing earlier statute law within legislation itself. In the UK this replaced the earlier method of citing the long title together with the chapter no. and the regnal year(s) of the parliamentary session in which it received Royal Assent. For example, modern legislation would simply refer to "the Evidence Act 1845", whereas in the past it would have been necessary to use wording such as the Act passed in the eighth and ninth year of Her Majesty's reign chapter one hundred and thirteen intituled "An Act to facilitate the Admission in Evidence of certain official and other Documents".

Short titles were introduced because the titles of statutes (now commonly known as long titles) had become so long that they were no longer a useful means of citation. For example, the title of 19 Geo.2 c.26 (1745) (Attainder of the Earl Kellie and others) ran to 65 lines of King's printer and to over 400 words.

Short titles were first introduced for Acts of Parliament in 1840's. Amending Acts also began to take the opportunity to create short titles for earlier Acts as well as for themselves. Eventually the Short Titles Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c.10) was passed to create short titles for almost all remaining legislation. This statute was repealed and replaced by the Short Titles Act 1896, which conferred short titles on about 2,000 Acts. The Short Titles Act (Northern Ireland) 1951 conferred short titles on 179 Acts applying to Northern Ireland. The Statute Law Revision (Scotland) Act 1964 conferred short titles on 164 pre-union Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. Further short titles were given by the Statute Law Revision Act 1948, the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1977 and the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1978.

In Ireland, ex post facto short titles have been conferred by the Short Titles Act 1962, the Statute Law Revision Act 2007, the Statute Law Revision Act 2009 and the Statute Law Revision Act 2012. In the Australian Capital Territory, certain Acts were renamed by Schedule 1 to the Legislation Act 2001.