Note 384 — Chapter V

The obligation to proceed by warrant was at first universal, as the Act of 1824, 4 Geo. IV. c. 34, gave the magistrate no discretion. By that act the master was to be served with a summons at the instance of the workman, whilst the workman was to be arrested on a warrant on the complaint upon oath of the master. But, in 1848, Jervis’s Act, 11 & 12 Vic. c. 43, gave justices power in all cases to issue a summons in the first instance. The practice was accordingly gradually introduced in England of summoning the workman; and the issue of a warrant was in general confined to cases in which the workman had gone away, or had failed to appear to a summons. Jervis’s Act, however, did not apply to Scotland, so that summary arrests of workmen on warrants continued until 1867; and this was one of the principal grievances adduced by the Glasgow representatives. Even in England warrants were occasionally granted by vindictive magistrates. In 1863 a dispute took place at a Durham colliery, and the employer proceeded against the miners under the Master and Servant Law. “In the middle of the next night twelve of them were taken out of their beds by the police and lodged in Durham lock-up, on the charge of deserting their work without notice” (Letter by Professor E. S. Beesly in Spectator, December 12, 1863).