This disability rights timeline lists events relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities in the United Kingdom, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
Prior to the 1700s
1200s – In the 13th century, England declared people with intellectual disabilities to be incapable of making decisions or managing their affairs. 1324 – The idea of insanity in English law dates from 1324, when the Statute de Praerogativa Regis allowed the King to take the lands of "idiots and lunatics."
1700s
1714 – In English law, the Vagrancy Act 1714 (13 Ann. c. 26) allowed two justices of the peace to confine a dangerous lunatic. 1774 – The Madhouses Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3. c. 49) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which set out a legal framework for regulating "madhouses" (insane asylums). It was repealed by the Madhouses Act 1828.
1800s
1800 – The Criminal Lunatics Act 1800 (39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. 94) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, that required and established a set procedure for the indefinite detention of mentally ill offenders. It was passed through the House of Commons in direct reaction to the trial of James Hadfield, who attempted to assassinate King George III.Roberts, Andrew (1981)Mental Health History Dictionary Middlesex University. 1808 – The County Asylums Act 1808 formed mental health law in England and Wales from 1808 to 1845. Notably, the County Asylums Act 1808 established public mental asylums in Britain. The act is also known as Mr. Wynn's Act, after Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, member of parliament for Montgomeryshire, who promoted the act. 1811 – The Marriage of Lunatics Act 1811 declared that any marriage entered into by a certified lunatic was void. This law was repealed for Ireland by the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015. 1815 – The Madhouses (Scotland) Act 1815 (55 Geo. 3. c. 69) made provision for patients paying money to be held in institutions that were run for a profit by private individuals. 1815 – The Criminal Lunatics Amendment Act 1815 was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as "An Act for the Safe Custody of Insane Persons Charged with Offenses".
1819 – The Pauper Lunatics Act 1819 was enacted, "for making provision for the better care of pauper lunatics in England". 1828 – The County Asylums Act 1828 was enacted in England as "An Act to amend the Laws for the Erection and Regulation of County Lunatic Asylums. And more effectually to provide for the care and maintenance of Pauper and Criminal Lunatics in England". 1828 – The Madhouses Act 1828 was enacted in England, and it reconstituted the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy and declared there should be fifteen of them, with five of those being physicians. It also repealed the Madhouses Act 1774. 1828 – The Chancery Lunatics Property Act 1828 was enacted as "An Act for extending the Acts passed in the forty-third and fifty-ninth years of the reign of his late majesty King George the third, for the sale of mortgages of estates of persons found lunatics by inquisition taken in England and Ireland, so as to authorise such sale and mortgage for some purposes; and for rendering Inquisitions on Commissions of Lunacy taken in England available in Ireland, and like Inquisitions taken in Ireland available in England." 1832 – The Madhouses Act 1832 was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
1840s – The M'Naghten rule (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "McNaughton") is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defense of insanity:
The rules so formulated as M'Naghten's Case 1843 10 C & F 200 have been a standard test for criminal liability in relation to mentally disordered defendants in common law jurisdictions ever since, with some minor adjustments. When the tests set out by the rules are satisfied, the accused may be adjudged "not guilty by reason of insanity" or "guilty but insane" and the sentence may be a mandatory or discretionary (but usually indeterminate) period of treatment in a secure hospital facility, or otherwise at the discretion of the court (depending on the country and the offence charged) instead of a punitive disposal. The insanity defence is recognized in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, India, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, and Norway (as well as most U.S. states with the exception of Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and Vermont) but not all of these jurisdictions still use the M'Naghten Rules.
1845 – The Lunacy Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 100) and the County Asylums Act 1845 formed mental health law in England and Wales from 1845 to 1890. The Lunacy Act 1845's most important provision was a change in the status of mentally ill people to patients. As well, the Lunacy Act 1845 created the Commissioners in Lunacy or Lunacy Commission, a UK public body established to oversee asylums and the welfare of mentally ill people. It succeeded the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy. The Lunacy Act 1845 was passed through Parliament simultaneously with the County Asylums Act 1845. The two acts were dependent on each other. The Lunacy Act 1845 established the Lunacy Commission and the County Asylums Act 1845 set forth most of the provisions as to what was to be monitored within the asylums and helped establish the public network of the county asylums. Like the Lunacy Act 1845, there had been several drafts of this act passed before 1845 and several afterward as well. The most notable of these were the County Asylum Act 1808, and the County Asylum Act 1853. The Lunacy Act 1845 itself was amended several times after its conception. There was a new version written in both 1846 and 1847. Both of these versions were actually repealed by the County Asylums Act 1853. The importance of these two acts together is that they consolidated Lunacy Law in England. However, no legislation has ever combined the entirety of Lunacy Law. Both of these acts were the basis for Lunacy Law in England until 1890 when both of them were repealed by the Lunacy Act 1890.
1883 – The Trial of Lunatics Act 1883 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing the jury to return a verdict that the defendant was guilty, but insane at the time, and should be kept in custody as a "criminal lunatic". This act was passed at the request of Queen Victoria, who, the target of frequent attacks by individuals with mental illness, demanded that the verdict be changed from "not guilty" so as to act as a deterrent to other "lunatics"; the phrasing of "guilty of the act or omission charged, but insane so as not to be responsible, according to law, for his actions." remained in use until the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964. It was cited in 1991 in the case of R v Burgess regarding the automatism defence. The form of special verdict provided for by this act was commonly known as guilty but insane. This expression was not an accurate description of that verdict.The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1949–1953). Report. Cmd 8932. HMSO. 1953. Paragraph 458 at page 157. 1886 – The Idiots Act 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. 25) was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was intended to give "... facilities for the care, education, and training of Idiots and Imbeciles". The Act made, for the first time, the distinction between "lunatics", "idiots", and "imbeciles" for the purpose of making entry into education establishments easier and for defining the ways they were cared for. Before the act, learning institutions for idiots and imbeciles were seen as either "licensed houses" or "registered hospitals" for lunatics, for which the parents of children hoping to enter would have to complete a form stating that they were "a lunatic, an idiot, or a person of unsound mind". Additionally, they were required to answer irrelevant questions and present two medical certificates. The act was repealed by the Mental Deficiency Act 1913, by which time two further classifications had been introduced: "feeble-minded people" and "moral defectives". 1886 – The Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. 16) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided a mechanism for a Member of Parliament who was judged to be of unsound mind to be removed from his seat. 1890 – The Lunacy Act 1890 repealed the Lunacy Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 100) and the County Asylums Act 1845, which had formed mental health law in England and Wales.
1900-1949
1913 – The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 was an act of the United Kingdom which made provisions for the institutional treatment of people deemed to be "feeble-minded" and "moral defectives". "It proposed an institutional separation so that mental defectives should be taken out of Poor Law institutions and prisons into newly established colonies."Anne Digby, "Contexts and perspectives" in 1-21 It was repealed by the Mental Health Act 1959. The 1913 act created the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency, which was a United Kingdom body overseeing the treatment of the mentally ill. The Board was created to replace the Commissioners in Lunacy, under the Home Office but independent in that it reported to the Lord Chancellor (who would investigate breaches of care and integrity). It was transferred to the Ministry of Health by the Ministry of Health Act 1919 and reorganized in 1930. The Board consisted of: a chairman, two Senior Medical Commissioners, one Senior Legal Commissioner, six Commissioners (lawyers and doctors), six Inspectors and administrative staff. By law, at least one of these had to be a woman. The Commissioners of the board went round the country seeing that those detained under the various mental and mental deficiency Acts were legally in custody and that care was proper and moneys and other properties owned by patients were not being misused or stolen. The board was based in Northumberland Avenue, London, until 1939 when it was moved to Hobart House, Grosvenor Place. Its responsibility was limited to England and Wales. Its functions were transferred to the Minister of Health by the National Health Service Act 1946. 1915 – People v. Schmidt, 216 N.Y. 324 (1915), is a British criminal case interpreting "wrong" in the M'Naghten rule for an insanity defense. The M'naghten rule included that a person was not guilty because of insanity if, because of a mental disorder, the defendant was not able to know her act was wrong. The court interpreted "wrong" to refer to knowledge the act was morally wrong, not knowledge that it was legally wrong. The court wrote, "The [M'Naghten] court expressly held that a defendant who knew nothing of the law would nonetheless be responsible if he know that the act was wrong, by which, therefore they must have meant, if he knew it was morally wrong... There is nothing to justify the belief that the words right and wrong, when they became limited by M'Naghten's case to the right and wrong of a particular act, cast off their meaning in terms of morals, and became terms of pure legality." The court also wrote on knowledge of moral wrongness in the case of a delusion of a deific decree, that God ordered a criminal act, when defendant knows the act is morally and legally wrong, "It seems a mockery to say that, within the meaning of the statute, she knows that the act is wrong."The court wrote that if a person has an insane delusion that "he has a command from the Almighty to kill, it is difficult to understand how such a man can know that it is wrong for him to do so."