Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hammond, Anthony (1758-1838)

by James McMullen Rigg

HAMMOND, ANTHONY (1758–1838), legal writer, practised below the bar as a special pleader at the Inner Temple and on the western circuit. In 1824 he was examined by a select parliamentary committee appointed to consider the expediency of consolidating and amending the criminal law of England, and submitted a draft measure for that purpose, which was printed by order of the House of Commons, was afterwards developed into a regular code, and formed the basis of the Larceny Laws Repeal and Consolidation, Criminal Procedure and Malicious Injuries to Property, and Remedies against the Hundred Consolidation Acts of 1827 (7 & 8 Geo. IV, cc. 27–31). The code itself, with ‘A Treatise on the Consolidation of the Criminal Law,’ was printed by order of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Peel, then home secretary, between 1825 and 1829, 8 vols., fol. Hammond was also consulted by the commissioners for the revision of the laws of the State of New York in 1825, to whom he communicated a pamphlet entitled ‘Reflections on Criminal Law.’ In 1828 Hammond was called to the bar. He died on 27 Jan. 1838.

Hammond published the following works:

1. ‘The Law of Nisi Prius,’ 1816, 8vo.
2. ‘Parties to Actions,’ 1817, 1827, 8vo.
3. ‘Principles of Pleading,’ 1819, 8vo.
4. ‘Scheme of a Digest of the Laws of England, with Introductory Essays on the Science of Natural Jurisprudence,’ 1820, 8vo.
5. ‘Reports in Equity,’ 1821, 2 vols. 8vo.
6. ‘Analytical Digest to the Term Reports and others,’ 1824, 2nd edit. 8vo; new edit., 1827.
7. ‘Practice and Proceedings in Parliament,’ &c., 1825, 8vo.
8. ‘On the Reduction to Writing of the Criminal Law of England,’ 1829, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. 1838, i. 334; Law List, 1829; Parl. Papers, 1824, Reports from Committees, vol. iv.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

J. M. R.