3. c. 24) passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, which was designed to prevent arson and sabotage against vessels, dockyards, and arsenals of the Royal Navy.

[7][6] The act's first section made it an offence, anywhere in the British Empire, to "wilfully and maliciously burn, set on fire, or otherwise destroy":—[7] The same punishment was mandated for aiding and abetting.

[21][22] He was found guilty and hanged from the mizzenmast of the frigate HMS Arethusa, the highest gallows erected in British history,[23] with the ship moored at Portsmouth Royal Dockyards within view of the damage he had caused.

[23] John the Painter had also tried to burn merchant vessels in Bristol, in response to which a bill was introduced in the Commons extending the 1772 act from naval to private ships and docks; but it was dropped at committee stage.

[20] The sample indictment in the 1922 edition of Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice states the offence as "Arson, contrary to section 1 of the Dockyards Protection Act, 1772.

[27] In 1913 suspicions that the suffragette arson campaign would target a royal dockyard were fanned by a letter discovered in April and the fire in December at Portsmouth semaphore tower; some reports of both incidents mentioned the capital offence.

[28] Sabotage was initially suspected after a 1950 explosion at DM Gosport in Portsmouth, and Sir Jocelyn Lucas asked during question time whether the 1772 act would be applied to the perpetrators; Clement Attlee's reply was noncommittal.

[32][33] Russell introduced a separate bill in 1841 specifically to tighten the wording of the 1772 act to remove the penalty in "cases in which there might be no destruction of naval stores, no treasonable intent, nor any view to cripple the resources of this country".

[34] The Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861 sharply limited the death penalty for civilians to only five crimes, namely: arson in royal dockyards, murder, treason, espionage, and piracy with violence.

[36] Unsuccessful Disraeli ministry bills of 1878 and 1879, which attempted to establish a criminal code for England (and Wales) and Ireland, would have repealed the 1772 act in those jurisdictions and made arson in royal dockyards a capital offence only in wartime.

The Attlee ministry's Criminal Justice Bill 1948 was amended by the House of Commons so that the death penalty for murder would be abolished, and that during peacetime the suspension would extend to other capital offences including arson in royal dockyards.

[45][46] However, this was not accepted by the House of Lords, and eventually the bill as enacted omitted these provisions,[47] although an unofficial suspension of the death penalty lasted for several months.

"[53] Despite abolition in the United Kingdom, a 2004 episode of the comedy quiz show QI asserted that it is still popularly and erroneously believed that arson in royal dockyards continues to exist as a capital offence.

[5] Jefferson's Summary View of the Rights of British America and the resulting Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress objected to the act's change of venue provision allowing Americans to be brought from the Thirteen Colonies to Great Britain for trial.

[57][58] In Australasia, the 1772 act was explicitly repealed by local legislatures establishing criminal codes for the jurisdictions of New Zealand (1893[59]), Queensland (1899[60]), and Western Australia (1901[61]).