An Act for regulating the Vessels carrying Passengers from the United Kingdom to his Majesty's Plantations and Settlements abroad, or to Foreign Parts, with respect to the Number of such Passengers.
The Act 43 Geo. 3. c. 56, sometimes called the Passenger Vessels Act 1803[1] or the Passenger Act 1803,[2] was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1803. It was the first of many laws intended to regulate the transportation of immigrants and to protect emigrants on board ships from exploitation by transportation companies (such as exorbitant rates and consequent subjection to poor sanitary conditions). The Passenger Act required improved conditions relating to hygiene, food and comfort for passengers travelling to North America. However, this law was not always followed by transportation providers and the spread of infectious diseases such as typhus continued.
This act was established under humanitarian pretences, but the more practical and desired effect was to raise the cost of passage to prevent as many as possible from leaving. Landlords who feared the emigration of their tenants lobbied extensively for this piece of legislation, and where one could previously travel to Canada for £3–4,[3] the price for the same passage was in some cases raised to £10 or more (equivalent to £1,150 in 2023). The ability to move abroad was subsequently limited to a small class of people until it was repealed in 1826.
^McGeachy. Argyll, 1730-1850. John Donald. 2005. p 333. Edmond, Migrations: Journeys in Time and Place, 2013, p 53. "Passenger Vessels Act": Cregreen (ed), Argyll Estate Instructions, (1964) 1 Publications of the Scottish Historical Society (Fourth Series) 73; The Canada Year Book 1957-58, p 166; Merkin, Marine Insurance: A Legal History, Edward Elgar, 2021, p cxli.
