censorship

censorship. The evolution of censorship has been a series of largely ineffective attempts by the authorities to suppress opinions of which they disapproved. Though they won many temporary victories, over time they were defeated by the growing liberalization of opinion, the difficulty of enforcing controls, and the proliferation of new vehicles of expression—pamphlets, plays, newspapers, film, radio, television, and computers. Before the invention of printing, arrangements for licensing were scarcely needed, though many authors, like Roger Bacon and John Wyclif, were subsequently taken to task for expressing heretical opinions. In 1529 Henry VIII issued a proclamation deploring the ‘pestiferous, cursed and seditious errors’ of Martin Luther, prohibiting the sale of books against the catholic religion, and mentioning by name several of Tyndale's works. By 1538 it was declared that all books of Scripture needed a licence from the Privy Council before publication. In 1557 the Stationers' Company was given the exclusive right of printing. Elizabeth repeated the licensing arrangements in 1559 and in 1586 printing was restricted to London and the two universities. These regulations did not prevent the production of broadsheets and pamphlets, particularly of a puritan bent. Licensing regulations were continued under Charles I, Cromwell, and at the Restoration. The decision in 1695 not to renew the Licensing Act freed authors from pre-publication inspection, but they were still liable to prosecution afterwards. In 1719 John Matthews, a Jacobite writer, was hanged for challenging the Hanoverian succession. Newspapers could be attacked by general warrants, which authorized the arrest of all concerned with the production or distribution of offending literature. Not until the Wilkes case in the 1760s were general warrants declared illegal.

Meanwhile, government had also moved against stage plays. As early as the 1570s the master of the revels had been given the task of licensing plays, but regulation was fitful. Walpole, provoked by satirical performances by Gay and Fielding, sponsored a statute in 1737 giving the lord chamberlain power to license theatres and plays. The later 18th cent. saw some relaxation. Another consequence of the Wilkes affair was that, in 1771, Parliament abandoned its efforts to prevent the publication of its debates in the newspapers. During the prosecution of William Woodfall in 1770, the jury insisted on its right to decide whether the passage complained of was libel (and not merely to declare the fact of publication), and this important extension of the right to comment was given statutory authority in Fox's Libel Act of 1792.

The current position is extremely complex and changes rapidly, partly because of the number of outlets now available. The lord chamberlain's power to license stage plays was removed in 1968. The Victorian Act of 1857 against obscene publications, under which James Joyce's Ulysses had been seized in 1923, was modified by an Act of 1959, which allowed a defence if artistic or literary merit could be proved. The first and most celebrated test of the new legislation was in 1960, when Lady Chatterley's Lover was cleared for publication after a parade of distinguished witnesses had testified to its deep moral integrity. Films are categorized under a British Board of Film Censors' code, set up by the industry itself. The home secretary has powers to intervene in BBC radio and television programmes, and the Independent Broadcasting Authority monitors commercial radio and television, though its interventions are infequent and gentle. To strike an appropriate balance on censorship is far from easy. Milton's Areopagitica (1644) was a noble statement of the right ‘to know, to utter, and to argue freely’, but it does not seem likely that he had in mind the tabloid press or video nasties.

J. A. Cannon