An Act to enforce the Execution of an Act of this Session of Parliament, for granting to His Majesty several Rates and Duties upon Houses, Windows, or Lights.
The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 (20 Geo. 2. c. 42) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that created a statutory definition of England as including both Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed. It was passed on 17 June 1747 and later repealed in its entirety by the Interpretation Act 1978.[1]
Provisions
The Act clarified that any reference to "England" in legislation passed before or after the Act would include Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed unless stated otherwise. This definition applied to all Acts of Parliament unless an alternative definition was provided. As legal scholar William Blackstone observed, the Act "perhaps superfluously" made explicit what had previously been implied.[2]
The town of Berwick had historically switched between Scottish and English control before the unification of the two crowns in 1603. The Act confirmed that Berwick would be governed by English law.
Of the original Act's four sections, only Section 3 related to Wales and Berwick. Sections 1 and 2 dealt with the collection of window tax, while Section 4 allowed Quaker officials to replace oaths of fidelity with a declaration, due to their religious objections to oath-taking.
Repeal
The Act's application to Wales was repealed by the Welsh Language Act 1967. The entire Act was later repealed by the Interpretation Act 1978, which established new definitions of England, Wales, and Berwick in legislation.
The Local Government Act 1972 clarified that "England" would henceforth refer to the counties created by the Act (including Berwick), while "Wales" referred to the new Welsh counties. This also settled the long-standing debate over Monmouthshire, officially recognizing it as part of Wales.[3]
