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Royal Proclamation, 1830
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In 1830 a Royal Proclamation was issued "for the encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the preventing and punishing of Vice, Profaneness, and Immorality." Copies of the Proclamation were sent to all the Church of England incumbents, for them to read out in Church.
"... dissolute, immoral, and disorderly practices ..."
The Proclamation commanded local judges, mayors, sheriffs and magistrates "to be vigilant and strict in the discovery and the eventual prosecution and punishment of all persons who shall be guilty of excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanation of the Lords' day, or other dissolute, immoral or disorderly practices ... and that by their own good and virtuous lives and conversations they do set good examples to all such as are under their authority."
Source:
The original of this document is held at Huntingdonshire Archives, as part of the archive of Leighton Bromswold parish church, reference HP53/23/1