Anthony Hammond: ‘Mr. Surface’ Peel's Persistent Codifier

Throughout the nineteenth century dissatisfaction with the criminal law frequently centred on its disparate and inaccessible state. For many reformers, particularly of a Benthamite persuasion, the route to salvation lay in the direction of the law's codification. This article examines the tenacious efforts of the barrister Anthony Hammond in the 1820s to expand Peel's limited schemes for the consolidation of criminal law statutes into a more radical, wide-ranging codification programme.