ALL THINGS LICENSING


Article by Mike Smith, Senior Specialist for Licensing and Community Safety at Guildford Borough Council and Vice-Chair of the Institute of Licensing South East Region: www.instituteoflicensing.org


Please note that this article represents my own views which are not presented as the views of the Institute of Licensing or Guildford BC.


A joyride through archaic taxi laws: furious driving, cockfighting, & a long overdue review


Like many TV viewers I’ve been enjoying the Young Sherlock series on Amazon Prime recently which harks back to a simpler age where taxis were operating in their original form; the horse and cart. In fact, Sherlock Holmes was first published in 1887, some 40 years after the main law governing hackney carriages, the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 came into effect. The year 1847 also saw the publication of Wuthering Heights currently in its latest incarnation in cinemas, and also the peak of the Irish potato famine.


Worryingly, if you ever feel that modern regulation can be a little… quirky… you may be surprised to hear that the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 is still the main law governing hackney carriages today.


Yes, while we now have electric vehicles, contactless payments and app bookings; the legal foundations of the taxi trade remain laid down at a time when the biggest transport innovation was “a slightly faster horse” and bear baiting, cockfighting, and furious driving were all considered pressing public policy concerns, and in true Victorian style, Parliament solved this by putting everything in one Act.


In this month’s article, being April where it is traditional to play a prank or two at the beginning of the month, and at a time where we are eagerly anticipating some form of legislative change, I thought I would take a light- hearted look at some of the Victorian era quirks in what remains the cornerstone of taxi laws in the 21st Century.


Victorian legislators: solving every problem in one go


The 1847 Act is a marvel, a sort of swiss army knife of public order law. Among the offences it still lists: l Bear baiting l Bull baiting l Cockfighting l Obstructing a street with a piano l Furious driving l Improper sweeping


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l Lighting fireworks disorderly l And of course, regulating hackney carriages


It is genuinely the case that the same legal instrument used today to control taxi fares also contains detailed instructions on what to do if someone starts a cockfight in the high street.


Why? Good question! Perhaps the Victorians didn’t categorise and wanted a deliberately flexible law, so they simply wrote every public nuisance they could think of into a single document and sealed it with a wax stamp.


Originally the Act addressed indecent exposure, obscene publications and prostitution, forming the early part of public morality legislation. Turning to hackney carriages, the Act empowers ‘Commissioners’ to licence hackney


carriages within prescribed


distances, regulate drivers and enforce penalties for unlicensed operation. Licences must be registered, renewed annually and maintained by proprietors with provisions for suspension or revocation for offences.


Plying for hire


The ‘Commissioners mentioned’ in the Act were, at the time, local improvement commissioners, trustees, or similar bodies authorised to regulate policing, paving, lighting, and watching in specific towns or districts. They were responsible to make sure hackney carriage services were licensed, and that no one was ‘plying for hire’ without being duly permitted, much like local authorities today.


Picture a dimly lit Victorian street, the kind where the pale glow of gas lamps barely pushes back the night. The lamps hiss softly, their glass globes haloed with mist rising from the damp cobblestones. A light fog sits close to the ground, swallowing sound and softening everything it touches. Through the gloom stands a lone hackney carriage, its painted lacquered body catching the wavering gaslight in dull, amber reflections. The horse stamps the ground now and then, sending up small puffs of steam from its nostrils as it waits. Its harness jingles faintly, the only sign of movement on an otherwise still street.


There is no reason for such a carriage to be here unless it is plying for hire. Hackney carriages were working vehicles. Drivers wouldn’t loiter in the cold simply for leisure. And this one is positioned exactly where one would expect: just outside a theatre whose evening performance has recently ended. The theatre


APRIL 2026 PHTM


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