An Act for carrying into Execution a Contract, made pursuant to the Act of Parliament of the 12th of his late Majesty King George 1st, between the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury and the Duke and Duchess of Atholl, the proprietors of the Isle of Man, and their Trustees, for the purchase of the said Island and its dependencies, under certain exceptions therein particularly mentioned.
As an Act of Parliament of 1609 (Assurance of the Isle of Man Act 1609, 7 Jas. 1. c. 4) had conferred the feudal rights over the island upon the Atholls, a further Act of Parliament was required to terminate those rights.
The Act came into force upon the granting of royal assent on 10 May 1765. The payment to the Duchess of Atholl was to be made no later than 1 June 1765.
The Act did not go as far as had been proposed: for a period there had been plans to merge the Isle of Man into the English county of Cumberland. This had met with fierce resistance from the inhabitants, led by the then Speaker of the House of Keys, Sir George Moore.[3]
The long title of the Act was "An Act for carrying into Execution a Contract, made pursuant to the Act of Parliament of the 12th of his late Majesty King George 1st, between the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury and the Duke and Duchess of Atholl, the proprietors of the Isle of Man, and their Trustees, for the purchase of the said Island and its dependencies, under certain exceptions therein particularly mentioned."
An act to empower the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury to purchase a certain Annuity in respect of Duties of Customs levied in the Isle of Man, and reserved Sovereign Rights in the said Island, belonging to John Duke of Atholl.
Under the Isle of Man Purchase Act, the Atholls still retained their manorial rights, the patronage of the bishopric, and certain other perquisites.
These were sold in 1828 for the sum of £417,144 (over £20,000,000 in modern terms).[4] This was accomplished by a further Act of Parliament "An Act to empower the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury to purchase a certain Annuity in respect of Duties and Customs levied in the Isle of Man, and any reserved sovereign rights in the said Island belonging to John Duke of Atholl" (6 Geo. 4. c. 34).
^The citation of this Act by this short title was authorised by the Short Titles Act 1896, section 1 and the first schedule. Due to the repeal of those provisions it is now authorised by section 19(2) of the Interpretation Act 1978.
^ abHartley Booth, V. E.; Sells, Peter (1980). British extradition law and procedure: including extradition between the United Kingdom and foreign states, the Commonwealth and dependent countries and the Republic of Ireland. Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff & Noordhoff. p. 5. ISBN978-90-286-0079-9. OCLC6890466.
