27 DECEMBER

WIDESPREAD CELEBRATIONS FOLLOW REPEAL OF THE ‘JEW BILL’

[ 27 December 1753 ]

In the summer of 1753, the Whig government passed a bill enabling Jews, who were already resident in Britain, to be naturalised without having to receive the sacrament at Holy Communion.

SLAVES IN JAMAICA REFUSE TO WORK FOR THEIR BRITISH SLAVE MASTERS

[ 27 December 1831 ]

On 27 December 1831, a widespread slave strike occurred in the British administered island of Jamaica.

DEATH PENALTY FOR ANYONE FOUND WITH ARMS OR WEARING A UNIFORM

[ 27 December 1920 ]

By late 1920, an anti British rebellion was tying down increasing number of British troops in Ireland. In a desperate attempt to crush the insurgency, General Sir Nevil Macready issued a proclamation that, as from 27 December 1920, ‘death will be the penalty of those found in unauthorised possession of arms, ammunition and explosives,’ or ‘wearing the uniform or equipment of his Majesty’s Naval, Military, Air or Police Forces, or wearing similar clothing likely to deceive.’¹ It’s unlikely that Macready felt much pity for those who would be executed under such draconian martial law measures. Only a year earlier he had confessed in a letter to Ian MacPherson, Chief Secretary for Ireland, that he loathed the country and ‘its people with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that which I feel against the Boche (Germans).’²

Footnotes

1. The first section of the proclamation summarised in ‘Cork City after the Fire,’ The Yorkshire Post, 14 December 1920, p. 7 and the section on the unauthorised wearing of any uniform cited in ‘Warning to Rebels: Martial Law in Ireland,’ The Farringdon Advertiser, 18 December 1920, p. 4.
2. Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, Turning Points of the Irish Revolution: The British Government, Intelligence and the Cost of Indifference, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, p. 163.

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