Anthony Hammond

Anthony Hammond (1758–1838) was an English barrister and legal writer, known as a legal reformer. His reform proposals for legal codification, influenced by Jeremy Bentham but also by Robert Malthus, went further than was acceptable at the time.

Life He practised below the bar as a special pleader at the Inner Temple and on the Western Circuit.

In 1824 Hammond was examined by a select parliamentary committee appointed to consider the expediency of consolidating and amending the criminal law of England; and he submitted a draft measure for that purpose, which was printed by order of the House of Commons. It was later developed into a regular code, and formed the basis of Peel's Acts (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 4 cc 27 - 31), according to Rigg. Radzinowicz disputes this. The code itself, with A Treatise on the Consolidation of the Criminal Law, was printed by order of Robert Peel, then Home Secretary, between 1825 and 1829, 8 vols, folio. On the Reduction to Writing of the Criminal Law of England. 1829. 8vo. and re-edited, along with Thomas Colpitts Granger, William David Evans' A Collection of Statutes...: Vol 1, 1836 Vol 2, 1836 Vol 3, 1836 Vol 4, 1836 Vol 5, 1836 Vol 6, 1836 Vol 7, 1836 Vol 8, 1836 Vol 9 Vol 10, 1836 Supplement, 1836(?)