Definition
False character is a historically specific English statutory offense consisting of two elements acting together: (1) impersonating the master, mistress, or authorized representative of a domestic servant, and (2) giving a fraudulent reference or testimonial about that servant's character to a prospective employer or other inquiring party. The offense criminalized the act of fraudulently vouching for a servant under a false identity — whether to secure the servant a position they could not honestly obtain, or to deceive a household into taking on someone unfit.
The offense was created by statute, 32 Geo. III. c. 56 (1792), and carried a fine of £20. It had no common law analogue as a distinct named crime; the statute was the source of both the prohibition and the penalty.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Character" in common use refers broadly to a person's moral or personal qualities, or to a fictional person in a story.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "character" as "the peculiar quality, or the sum of qualities, by which a person or thing is distinguished from others; the stamp impressed by nature, education, or habit; that which a person or thing really is." In the employment context, a "character" or "character reference" was a formal written or spoken testimonial about a servant's qualities and history of service — a standard document in domestic employment.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is temporal and contextual rather than definitional. The word "character" in its employment-reference sense is largely obsolete in modern usage; most readers today would not immediately recognize "giving a character" as a technical act capable of criminal falsification. The legal offense depends entirely on understanding "character" as a term of art in the domestic service economy of Georgian and Victorian England.
Common Confusion
False character should not be confused with false pretenses, fraud, or impersonation generally, though it overlaps with each. What distinguishes false character as a named offense is the specific combination of role-impersonation (pretending to be the servant's employer or their agent) and the testimonial act (giving the reference itself). Either element alone — impersonating an employer for other purposes, or simply lying in a reference — may implicate different offenses. The statute did not criminalize a servant giving a false account of their own past; it targeted the person fraudulently impersonating the reference-giver.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "false character" in historical sources should recognize it as a dead-letter statutory offense with no modern American counterpart. Several research traps apply.
First, the offense is England-specific and statute-specific. It never became part of American common law or colonial reception statutes in any meaningful form. American legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century reproduce the English definition as a matter of completeness, not as a guide to enforceable domestic law. Treat all three source dictionaries here as reporting English law, not American practice.
Second, the term appears in older indices and digests under "character" without the "false" qualifier, and may be cross-listed under "servants," "personation," or "master and servant." Researchers working through period digests should check all three entry points.
Third, the underlying statute — 32 Geo. III. c. 56 — is the anchor for any serious historical research. The dictionaries are summarizing it, not expanding on it. If the statute itself is needed, it must be located through English statutory collections; none of the three source dictionaries quote it in full.
Fourth, "false character" as a phrase occasionally appears in nineteenth-century American fraud and employment cases not as a legal term of art, but descriptively — meaning simply that someone gave a dishonest reference. Distinguishing between the English statutory offense and the descriptive American usage requires reading context carefully. The statutory meaning will always include the impersonation element; the descriptive use will not.
Finally, researchers interested in the modern trajectory of this subject should look to character evidence rules and fraud-by-misrepresentation doctrine, neither of which inherited the specific shape of the 1792 statute.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence — are in near-complete agreement, reproducing essentially the same sentence: impersonating a master or mistress and giving a false character to a servant is punishable by £20 fine under 32 Geo. III. c. 56. The uniformity is itself informative; none of the three is working from independent analysis. All three are summarizing the same English statute.
Rapalje & Lawrence appends a note on the maxim "Falsa causa non nocet" (a false motive will not vitiate), which concerns testamentary law and is unrelated to the false character offense — its appearance in the same entry block is a typographical artifact of alphabetical organization, not a doctrinal connection.
Black's adds a separate entry for "false claim" in forest law immediately following the false character definition. Again, this is alphabetical adjacency, not doctrinal linkage.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the practical enforcement record of the statute, the social history of the domestic service economy that generated it, how courts construed the impersonation element, or what happened to the offense after the servant economy declined in the twentieth century. For any of these questions, the dictionaries are a starting point only.
Jurisdictional Note
False character as a named statutory offense is an English law concept with no direct American equivalent. Jurisdictions that received English common law did not receive English statutes wholesale, and no American state appears to have enacted a parallel provision. Modern conduct that might have fallen under this offense would today be analyzed under fraud, misrepresentation, or identity fraud statutes, none of which are shaped by the 1792 English act.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia: Impeachment by Character for Untruthfulness — Rules 608 and 609 (civpro_178) — relevant for researchers moving from historical false character doctrine toward modern treatment of character evidence and credibility in American courts.