Talk:Servants' Characters Act 1792

A fact from Servants' Characters Act 1792 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 February 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Servants' Characters Act 1792 criminalised the creation of false references by servants in Great Britain?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Servants' Characters Act 1792.

Wikipedia

Politics of the United Kingdom Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article was created or improved during the "The 20,000 Challenge: UK and Ireland", which started on 20 August 2016 and is still open. You can help!

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 13:21, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

... that the Servants' Characters Act 1792 criminalised the creation of false references by servants in Great Britain? Source: "The 1792 Act created a number of offences including falsely impersonating any master or mistress and giving a false character reference to a servant" from: "Stature Law Repeals: Eighteenth Report" (PDF). The Law Commission and The Scottish Law Commission. p. 58. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
- ALT1: ... that although it was in force for more than 200 years only one prosecution was made under Britain's Servants' Characters Act 1792, of an employer for providing a false reference? Source: "In the two centuries during which the 1792 Act has been in force, there has been only one reported case on it R v Costello and Bishop [1910] 1 KB 28 (which concerned the liability of an employer for giving a false reference)" from: "Stature Law Repeals: Eighteenth Report" (PDF). The Law Commission and The Scottish Law Commission. p. 58. Retrieved 4 January 2023. and "It has only been used once in a successful prosecution in its 216 years." from: "Servant law among acts to be axed". BBC News. 18 March 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Pronto Computers

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 15:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Servants' Characters Act 1792; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

I will review this in the table below and will ping the nom when my review is done. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:42, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- @Dumelow: looks good to me!

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited:
Interesting:
Other problems:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looks good to me. It looks neutral, references passed spot-checks, and the hook is both in the article and sourced to page 58 of the law commission review above. I would prefer secondary sources to cover this some of the information included, but I don't think that is a barrier based on the DYK criteria (though it would probably be to a GA). I was shaky on notability, but the law is discussed here, which indicates that someone has published stuff about this other than the British government. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:42, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review Red-tailed hawk, I don't have access to that article, unfortunately, but have added it as further reading - Dumelow (talk) 06:20, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, Dumelow! The article is available through WP:TWL's access to HeinOnline, for what it's worth, so you may have access through that. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:24, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Red-tailed hawk, had missed that - tthe TWL search engine is quite flaky! Now incorporated the additional information from that source - Dumelow (talk) 06:53, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]