Ethics of Research involving animals
Historical background to the A(SP)A
13.2 During the 19th century, legislation relating to animal treatment began to be enacted in the UK. The legal offence of animal cruelty was first introduced in An Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle (‘Martin’s Act’), passed in 1822. It stated that ‘if any person or persons having the charge, care or custody of any horse, cow, ox, heifer, steer, sheep or other cattle, the property of any other person or persons, shall wantonly beat, abuse or ill-treat any such animal, such individuals shall be brought before a Justice of the Peace or other magistrate’. These provisions were extended in 1835 and 1849, before being consolidated in 1911 in the Protection of Animals Act, which forbade the causing of unnecessary suffering, making it a legal offence to ‘cruelly beat, kick, ill-treat, over-drive, over-ride, overload, torture, infuriate or terrify any animal’.1 By the First World War, domestic and captive mammals, birds, reptiles and fish were all generally protected from cruelty by law.
13.3 In addition, legislation was established to regulate the way in which animals were treated in specific circumstances. This included the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, which related specifically to scientific experiments. It introduced the requirement of personal licences for those undertaking research and a system of inspection. From the 1960s onwards there was increasing criticism of the 1876 Act, and a series of official and semi-official committees made recommendations for changes to the law.2 In addition, the European Directive EEC 86/609 required Member States to adopt national legislation, or similar legal instruments to implement its provisions. In the 1980s, the UK Government produced new draft legislation and eventually the 1876 Act was repealed by the A(SP)A.3