The fate of the 1840 Vaccination Act highlights the striking differences between public vaccination in different parts of the United Kingdom. The same piece of legislation that successfully established universal provision of free vaccination across England and Wales signally failed to do so in Ireland because of the different conditions of their systems of poor relief. In the years following, public vaccination in Ireland continued to have a distinctive form and character. Between 1851 and 1879, four acts relating to vaccination were instituted. The legislation fell into two phases. The acts passed in 1851 and 1858 created a national system of vaccination provision as part of a wider reform of poor law medical services, and then expanded the number of outlets for vaccination. This produced a service that aimed to encourage the vaccination of the largest possible number of children by making the procedure open and freely accessible to all. Despite the presence of one medical practitioner on the supervising central government body, the Commissioners for Poor Relief, the service was organized and run at the local level, with minimal intervention from Dublin: a style of management similar to that of the Poor Law Commissioners in London. From 1863, vaccination policy shifted, with new laws intended to bring the Irish administration into line with that in England and Wales. Compulsory vaccination was introduced in 1863, and the act of 1879 gave the Irish commissioners new powers to actively supervise vaccination practice.