Inclosure act

{{short description|Series of Acts that empowered enclosure of open fields and common land in England}}

The inclosure acts{{efn|"Enclosure" and "inclosure" are words that are frequently used interchangeably, but there is a fundamental difference between them: an "enclosure" is a physical boundary around a piece of land; "inclosure" is the legal term that refers to the conversion of common land into private land. All British acts of Parliament use the term "Inclosure".{{cite web|author=Staff|title=Enclosure (Inclosure)|publisher=Thomson Reuters Practical law|url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/Glossary/UKPracticalLaw/Ia3ab2042e6cb11e9adfea82903531a62|access-date=20 March 2024|year=2024}}}} created legal property rights to land previously held in common in England and Wales, particularly open fields and common land. Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 individual acts enclosing public land were passed, affecting 28,000 km².{{cite web|title=Enclosing the Land|url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/landscape/overview/enclosingland/|work=www.parliament.uk|access-date=12 December 2013}}

History

Before the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste".{{efn|The Domesday Book records various manors as waste (Latin: vasta, wasta). Holdings described as waste or not in use paid no tax.{{Cite web |title=Waste |url=http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/data-terminology/taxation/waste |publisher=Hull Domesday project |access-date=22 August 2019}}}} "Common" land was under the control of the lord of the manor, but certain rights on the land such as pasture, pannage, or estovers were held variously by certain nearby properties, or (occasionally) in gross by all manorial tenants. "Waste" was land without value as a farm strip – often very narrow areas (typically less than a yard wide) in awkward locations (such as cliff edges, or inconveniently shaped manorial borders), but also bare rock, and similar. "Waste" was not officially used by anyone, and so was often farmed by landless peasants.{{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Gregory |author2=Anthony Clark |title=Common Rights to Land in England |journal=The Journal of Economic History |date=December 2001| volume=61| issue=4| pages=1009–1036 |doi=10.1017/S0022050701042061 |s2cid=154462400 |url=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=104888&jid=JEH&volumeId=61&issueId=04&aid=104887&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession= |access-date=12 December 2013|url-access=subscription }}

The remaining land was organised into a large number of narrow strips, each tenant possessing a number of disparate strips throughout the manor, as would the manorial lord. Called the open-field system, it was administered by manorial courts, which exercised some collective control. What might now be termed a single field would have been divided under this system among the lord and his tenants; poorer peasants (serfs or copyholders, depending on the era) were allowed to live on the strips owned by the lord in return for cultivating his land.{{Cite encyclopedia |title=open-field system |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429652/open-field-system/ |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. |access-date=12 December 2013}} The system facilitated common grazing and crop rotation.

Any individual might possess several strips of land within the manor, often at some distance from one another. Seeking better financial returns, landowners looked for more efficient farming techniques.{{sfn|Motamed|Florax|Masters|2014|pages=339-368}} Enclosure acts for small areas had been passed sporadically since the 12th century, but advances in agricultural knowledge and technology in the 18th century made them more commonplace. Because tenants, or even copyholders, had legally enforceable rights on the land, substantial compensation was provided to extinguish them; thus many tenants were active supporters of enclosure, though it enabled landlords to force reluctant tenants to comply with the process.

With legal control of the land, landlords introduced innovations in methods of crop production, increasing profits and supporting the Agricultural Revolution; higher productivity also enabled landowners to justify higher rents for the people working the land.

The powers granted in the Inclosure Act 1773 (13 Geo. 3. c. 81) of the Parliament of Great Britain were often abused by landowners: the preliminary meetings where enclosure was discussed, intended to be held in public, often took place in the presence of only the local landowners, who regularly chose their own solicitors, surveyors and commissioners to decide on each case. In 1786 there were still 250,000 independent landowners, but in the course of only thirty years their number was reduced to 32,000.https://libcom.org/files/Rocker%20-%20Anarcho-Syndicalism%20Theory%20and%20Practice.pdf, p. 36.

The tenants displaced by the process often left the countryside to work in the towns. This contributed to the Industrial Revolution – at the very moment new technological advances required large numbers of workers, a concentration of large numbers of people in need of work had emerged; the former country tenants and their descendants became workers in industrial factories within cities.{{Cite web |title=Enclosing the Land |url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/landscape/overview/enclosingland/ |access-date=12 December 2013}}

The Inclosure (Consolidation) Act 1801 (41 Geo. 3. (U.K.) c. 109) was passed to tidy up previous acts. The Inclosure Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 118) instituted the appointment of Inclosure Commissioners, who could enclose land without submitting a request to Parliament.

List of acts

The Inclosure Act 1773 (13 Geo. 3. c. 81)

The Inclosure Acts 1845 to 1882 mean:The Short Titles Act 1896, section 2(1) and second schedule

The Inclosure Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 118)
The Inclosure Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 70)
The Inclosure Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. 111)
The Inclosure Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 99)
The Inclosure Act 1849 (12 & 13 Vict. c. 83)
The Inclosure Commissioners Act 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 53)
The Inclosure Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. 79)
The Inclosure Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 97)
The Inclosure Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 31)
The Inclosure Act 1859 (22 & 23 Vict. c. 43)
The Inclosure, etc. Expenses Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 89)
The Commons Act 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c. 56)
The Commons (Expenses) Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 56)
The Commons Act 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. 37)
The Commonable Rights Compensation Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 15)

Notes

Citations

References

{{Cite journal|last=Boyle|first=James|title=The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain|journal=Law and Contemporary Problems|volume= 66|number= 1/2 |year=2003|pages= 33–74|jstor=20059171}}

{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90c0AAAAIAAJ |title=The Act for the Enclosure of Commons in England and Wales: With a Treatise on the Law of Rights of Commons, in Reference to this Act: and Forms as Settled by the Commissioners, Etc. |last=Cooke |first=George Wingrove |author-link=George Wingrove Cooke |date=1846 |publisher=Owen Richards |location=London}}
{{cite book |title=Parliamentary Papers |volume=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VdUOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA588 |page=588 |publisher=H.M. Stationery Office |date=1919}}
{{Cite journal |last1=Motamed |first1=Mesbah J. |last2=Florax|first2= Raymond J. G. M|last3=Masters|first3=William A.|title=Agriculture, Transportation and the Timing of Urbanization: Global Analysis at the Grid Cell Level |year=2014|journal=Journal of Economic Growth|volume=19|issue=3 |pages= 339–368|doi=10.1007/s10887-014-9104-x | url=http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters/files/2010/07/MFM_GeographyUrbanization_Rev31Oct2013.pdf |access-date=12 December 2013}}
{{cite web|author=Staff|title=Enclosure (Inclosure)|publisher=Thomson Reuters Practical Law|url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/Glossary/UKPracticalLaw/Ia3ab2042e6cb11e9adfea82903531a62|access-date=20 March 2024|year=2024}}
The Parliamentary Debates, Volume 80. By Great Britain. Parliament.[https://books.google.com/books?id=1AcPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR483 p. 483]
Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 12. By Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons [https://books.google.com/books?id=BH4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA104 104] [https://books.google.com/books?id=BH4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA380 p. 380]
Edinburgh Review, Or, Critical Journal, Volume 62. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bOoEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA327 p. 327]
The Pictorial History of England, Volume 6. By George Lillie Craik, Charles Knight [https://books.google.com/books?id=vOdBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA781 p. 781]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=ACEpAAAAYAAJ The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields]. By Gilbert Slater
An Analytical Digest of the Reports of Cases Decided in the Courts of Common Law, and Equity, of Appeal, and Nisi Prius. By Henry Jeremy. [https://books.google.com/books?id=xWRHAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA40 p. 40]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=AR9EAAAAYAAJ%20 The Fence]. By Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company [https://books.google.com/books?id=AR9EAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT21 p. 21]
The Contemporary Review, Volume 67. [https://books.google.com/books?id=RJLQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA703 p. 703]
Alienated tithes in appropriated and impropriated parishes. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vEQ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA68-IA38 p. 38]

External links

[http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/term.php?i=18335 Thesaurus of Acts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173144/http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/term.php?i=18335 |date=3 March 2016 }}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20040622045916/http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Parliamentary%2Benclosure?opendocument Parliamentary enclosure – Surrey County Council]
[http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=345&CATLN=2&Highlight=&FullDetails=True Archive details and description]
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b1m9b The Enclosures of the 18th Century], BBC Radio 4 discussion with Rosemary Sweet, Murray Pittock & Mark Overton (In Our Time, 1 May 2008)

Category:Lists of legislation by short title and collective title

Category:Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England and Wales

Category:Enclosures

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1845

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1846

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1847

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1848

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1849

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1851

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1852

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1854

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1857