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Combination Act 1799

United Kingdom legislation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ2985061 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Combination Act 1799 (39 Geo. 3. c. 81) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Titled "An Act to prevent Unlawful Combinations of Workmen", it prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. The act received royal assent on 12 July 1799.

An additional act, the Combination Act 1800 (39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. 106), was passed the following year.

Editorial summary

“Combination Act 1799” enters the record as united Kingdom legislation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Combination, United and Kingdom can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1799, 1800—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1799-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Combination, United and Kingdom.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Combination Act 1799” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Combination, United and Kingdom provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2985061. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1799 and 1800.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Combination Act 1799”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Combination Act 1799 primary sources, Combination Act 1799 archive and Combination research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Combination Act 1799”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Combination Act 1799” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.