Ruffhead’s Statutes At Large, Magna Charta to 1763 / 1800.

Another of the major eighteenth century collections of legislation, and probably the best, Ruffhead’s Statutes At Large ran for 9 volumes, from Magna Charta to 4 George 3, 1763. Those volumes were digitized by the Internet Archive, and are the ones I have OCRed; said texts can be downloaded from Github.

The editor of this series, Owen Ruffhead, died in 1769, and this series was continued in a further five volumes up to 1786. There was also what was touted as a ‘New Edition’ published  in the year of his death, of at least some of the original volumes; these do appear to have been re-typeset, but with no or few changes to the text.

Confusingly, there was then another edition of this series, edited by one Charles Runnington, that covered the same period as the first 14 Ruffhead volumes, in ten books (including an index and appendix). There is nothing on the cover to distinguish this from its precedents. t appears to omit some ‘obsolete’ laws, which is why it is shorter than the original. Then there was a further four volumes, continuing both the original Ruffhead and the Runnington series, and so displaying two different volume numbers on its covers. The bibliograpy below consolidates the Ruffhead series; the Runnington volumes I have located are appended after it.

Added to this set is an index that was being compiled by Ruffhead at the time of his death, and continued by “another Gentleman”, published in 1772. This is an index to statutes, not any particular collection, and gives regnal codes rather than page numbers.

Ruffhead is pretty much the standard resource for the laws of Great Britain, and numerous sets and copies from various libraries have been digitized. The quality of both the original volume scanned, and the resulting images, vary significantly. I have endeavoured to link to the best quality version that could be found, or to give multiple options.

Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from Magna Charta, to the end of the Reign of King Henry VI (Vol. 1). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef01grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from the first year of King Edward IV, to the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth (Vol. 2). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef02grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from the tenth year of King William III to the end of the Reign of Queen Anne (Vol. 4). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef04grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from the third year of King George II to the twentieth year of King George II (Vol. 6). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef06grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from the first year of King James I to the tenth year of the reign of King William III (Vol. 3). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef03grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1763). The statutes at large, from the first year of King George I to the third year of King George II (Vol. 5). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef05grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1764). The statutes at large, from the twentieth year of King George II to the thirtieth year of King George II (Vol. 7). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef07grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1764). The statutes at large, from the thirtieth year of the reign of King George II to the second year of the reign of King George III (Vol. 8). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef08grea
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1765). The statutes at large, from the second year of the reign of King George III to the end of the last session of Parliament (Vol. 9). London : Printed by Mark Baskett ... and by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan ... http://archive.org/details/statutesatlargef09grea
Great Britain. (1771). The Statutes at Large: From the Fifth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Tenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third, inclusive. (Vol. 10). https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0aRFAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain, & Ruffhead, O. (1772). A complete index to the Statutes at large, from Magna Charta to the tenth year of George III. inclusive. London : Printed by His Majesty’s Statute and Law Printers for P. Uriel. http://archive.org/details/acompleteindext00britgoog
Great Britain. (1774). The Statutes at Large: From the Tenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Thirteenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 11). https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8qRFAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1776). The Statutes at Large: From the Thirteenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 12). https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MaZFAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1780). The Statutes at Large: From the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Twentieth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 13). https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SaZFAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1786). The Statutes at Large: From the Twentieth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Twenty-fifth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 14). https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MZZFAAAAcAAJ
Great Britain. (1789). The Statutes at Large: From the Twenty-sixth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Twenty-ninth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 15). M. Baskett. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HZnbVmgDktUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1794). The Statutes at Large: From the Thirtieth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Thirty-fourth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 16). M. Baskett. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PBQvJ7Ia0oUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1798). The Statutes at Large: From the Thirty-fifth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Thirty-eighth Year of the Reign of King George the Third. (Vol. 17). M. Baskett. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Imy3W_M5mtIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great Britain. (1800). The Statutes at Large: From the Thirty-ninth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the End of the Fifth and Concluding Session of the Eighteenth and last Parliament of Great Britain, held in the Forty-first Year of the Reign of  King George the Third. (Vol. 18). Eyre & Strahan. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_YNRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Runnington’s Series

Vols. 1 to 3: not found.
Vol. 4: 1699, 10 William 3 to 1713, 12 Anne: Hathi Trust. Google (1). Google (2).
Vol. 5: 1714, 1 George 1 to 1735, 8 George 2: Hathi Trust. Google. Jstor.
Vol. 6: 1736, 9 George 2 to 1752, 25 George 2: Hathi Trust. Google. Jstor.
Vol. 7: 1753, 26 George 2 to 1766, 6 George 3: Jstor.
Vol. 8: 1767, 7 George 3 to 1778, 18 George 3: Hathi Trust. Google. Jstor.
Vol. 9: 1779, 19 George 3 to 1785, 25 George 3: Hathi Trust (1). Hathi Trust (2). Google (1). Google (2). Jstor.
Vol. 10: Index and Appendix: Hathi Trust. Google.