The Extent and Nature of Parliamentary Enclosure

By JOHN CHAPMAN

N SPITE of the recent advances in our suffering from the same problems as the knowledge of the Parliamentary enclos- 'Domesday'. I ure movement, notably through the With regard to the breakdown into types work of Dr Michael Turner, ~ the details of of affected, the situation is far worse. precisely what land was affected remain The act estimates are quite useless from this somewhat obscure. Turner's edition of point of view, since only a tiny handful give Tate's 'Domesday' offers figures for most of this type of detail, and the summaries given the English enclosures 2 but, quite apart from in the awards are only marginally better. those where no figure is given, many are Though there are now a number of major based on the act and award estimates, which studies available of some individual coun- can be wildly inaccurate. This has been ties, or substantial parts of them, these are demonstrated in detail elsewhere for North- neither numerous enough, nor necessarily ern England,3 but is by no means restricted calculated on a sufficiently comparable basis, to the remote uplands, as might be assumed. to give any overall picture of the movement Substantial errors occur in Sussex, 4 and an as a whole. ~ examination of some material produced surprising errors even there. Comparison of the sums of the allotments I with the award estimates given in Turner for This paper seeks to remedy some of these sixteen awards revealed that although eleven problems by presenting the results of a fell within 2 per cent the remaining four were national survey of the Parliamentary enclos- all over I 4 per cent out, rising to 23.5 per cent ure awards, v The data were collected from a at Congerstone. Strangely, in the two worst Io per cent sample of all English and Welsh cases the act estimates were far closer to the awards, full details of every individual true figure. A similar exercise on eleven allotment being abstracted for each selected Kesteven awards found eight without any award. 8 In view of the known and suspected award figure; one, Eagle, completely variations in enclosure awards in different accurate; and two over 2o per cent out. The parts of the country, 9 a simple unrestricted situation with regard to Wales is still worse, random sample was statistically unaccept- for the only list covering the whole country, able, since there was a substantial danger of that ofBowen, 5 is incomplete, in addition to drawing, for example, a disproportionate

' M Turner, English Parliamentary Enclosure, Folkestone, 198o, and (' For example, the recent work of E and R C Russell, LaMscape Enclosures in Britain 175o--183o, 1984. Changes in South Humberside: The Endosures of Thirty-Seven Parishes, : W E Tate, A Domesday of Ene.lish Enclosure Acts and Awards, M E Hull, x982, and Old and New Landscapes in the Horncastle Area, Turner, editor, P,eading, 1978. Lincoln, t985. •~ J Chapman andTM Harris, 'The Accuracy of Enclosure Estimates: v Subsequent to the unions of tile respective Parliaments with tile Some Evidence from Northern England', jolm;al of Historical English one, there appear to have been one enclosure for Scotland Geoqraphy, 8, 1982, pp 261-264. and ten for Ireland. These have been omitted. 4j Chapman, 'Some Problems in tile Interpretation of Enclosure l am grateful to the ESRC, then the SSRC, for their financial Awards', Ag Hist Rev, 26, 1978, pp l 1 I-I 12. assistance for this work, and to Dr T M Harris, then my research l Bowen, The Great Enclosures qfCommon hi Wah,s, Chiswick, assistant, for his invaluable help on the project. 1914. ') Turner, English Parliamentary Enclosure, pp 32-62. 26 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

Distribution of sample enclosures

pre-174g × 1750-1769 + 1770-1789 X 1790-1809 OO ~ x 1810-1829 ,~1830-1849 ~7 O x + O 1850-1869 oo L * 1870 onwards ' O~ ,[3 in <)x Xx +x O q x o + [] + +0 x u +x+ ,,~

+x+ :¢o+ XxxgV ~ V+ x :.~ += # ,

x x x <)'t/X~x + / x V x x F x. ~ ~ x=~ ~+,x x ~ ~xX.~'~ /

/ ~ ~' + × u, -,.. +d~, x = =-@#o~< ~o 'o o f

/- + "-~ _+++ ,..¢, #., ox ,,u a 0 _ o o oX+E] x~X~+x~x~"£, o x+ oO ~ .~"

BD C~ + + x OD [] XoX~<~''" ~~ x x x x [] o .J

l-..- v.. rn u 0 xo o_~> x 0 ..J I xX===x [] ~ _2Xx 0 -'~. u-_..'_ 0 C~Lx °0 . /

o ~ o~

' 80 kil0metres

FIGURE I THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE 27 number of large northern enclosures, or of for England, or a grand total ofjust over 8.85 Midland open field ones. The sample was million acres for the whole Parliamentary therefore drawn separately from each enclosure movement. In practice these county, or, in the Welsh case, group of figures must be regarded as representing an adjacent counties, thus producing a regional upper limit, for doubts must be expressed stratification, and ensuring that each region about the validity of some of the enclosures was proportionately correctly represented in making up the grand total. If the proportion the whole. (See Fig I.) of spurious enclosures discovered in the The definition of an 'enclosure' which was sample were to be matched in the overall used was that adopted originally by Tate, ,o total for England, some seventy awards multiple awards under a single act being would be rejected, giving a projected total of regarded as part of the same enclosure. A 7.57 million acres. The Welsh figures would number of awards examined proved not to be unaffected since almost all Welsh awards fall within the normal definition of enclos- were examined and the total contains only ure, for example because they consisted those meeting acceptable criteria. The same entirely of exchanges of already enclosed is also true of several English counties, so land" or because they were simply regula- that although a figure of 8.75 million acres tory, ,2 and these were replaced by reserves, might be taken as the lower limit of the range as were any awards which were lost or too it seems likely that the true figure would lie defective to be usable. closer to the upper limit of 8.85 million. The adjusted totals of enclosures proved It must be noted that these figures refer to to be 5570, 5341 in England and 229 in Wales. the total land affected by enclosure, and as Owing to the effects of rounding in such do not equate exactly with the total individual counties, the sample consisted of amount of open or abolished 559 awards, 535 from England and 24 from by the process. It was a frequent practice at Wales. As this involved a slight over- enclosure for landowners to exchange small representation of Wales, and subsequent patches of old enclosed land for the new analysis demonstrated a number of signifi- allotments in order to eliminate awkward cant differences between English and Welsh detached pieces of their estates, and pro- enclosures, most calculations were per- vision for this was normally included in the formed separately for the two countries acts. Some acts, however, went further, and before figures were amalgamated to specified that all detached fields of less than a produce grand totals. This had the added particular size, usually three acres, should be advantage of permitting comparisons with thrown into the melting pot, ,3 while others existing published figures, which normally similarly incorporated any land within the refer to one or other country individually. same fence which was owned by more than In total, the sample awards affected one owner. ,4 Though the acreage involved 892,o89.25 acres of land, including old was usually small, it was by no means enclosures exchanged or reallocated. negligible, and cases involving larger areas 768,449.95 acres lay in England and are not rare. ,s In consequence, the total land 123,639.3o in Wales. Taken at face value, allotted by the awards exceeds the amount these would imply totals of approximately theoretically available for enclosure. Dis- I. 18 million acres for Wales and 7.67 million '~ e.g. Llangybi, Monmouthshire. Gwent County Record Office, Enc t. '° See, for example, W E Tate, 'A Handlist of Sus:lex Enclosure ,4 e.g. Bosham and Funtington, Sussex. West Sussex County Acts and Awards', East and West Sussex County Councils, Record Office, Rm 3 DC7; Broadwater, Sussex, PRO Record Publication, ,, 195o. CP43/9t ,. " e.g. Evington, Leicestershire; and Carisbrooke and Godshill, ,s e.g. Romsey Extra, Hampshire. Hampshire County Record Isle of Wight. Office, Enc 89; Bury, Sussex. West Sussex County Record "~ e.g. Luton, . Office, QDD/6/WI8. 28 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW regarding certain doubtful areas, which will hence overstate the earlier changes, quite be considered later, 33, I46 acres, or 3.94 per apart from any other objections which might cent of the sample, consisted of such be raised. ,9 already-enclosed land, and for England separately the figure is proportionately higher, at 4. I9 per cent. The totals actually II enclosed were thus 736,267 acres for With regard to the type of land involved, the England and I22,676 for Wales, giving overwhelming majority of awards specify implied totals of 7,253,955 and I~7,o3o clearly whether the land concerned in any respectively. The grand total enclosed particular allotment was open field, would appear to have been over 8.42 million meadow, or common waste. While this acres. division may beg certain questions about the For England alone the amount of open or real nature of some open field land common land abolished by enclosure would immediately prior to enclosure, and the therefore appear to fall in a range from 7.25 degree to which common waste had been million acres, assuming a maximum number encroached and cultivated, the legal situ- of erroneous enclosures, to 7.35 million, ation, at least, is usually clear. Where the text assuming none. Such a figure considerably failed to identify the land type clearly, it was exceeds those given by many previous often possible to resolve most of the authorities, and used in subsequent analyses ambiguities or repair the omissions with the of the movement. The total of six million aid of the maps. There remained, however, a acres which has been widely used, for hard core of problem cases, where the land example by Chambers and Mingay and by fell into more than one category, but the McCloskey, represents an understatement proportions could not be accurately deter- by almost 18 per cent, and Tate's 1967 figure mined. Initially these amounted to 8.66 per of 6.5 million is almost I I per cent under. ~6 cent of the sample and were strongly Even the most detailed recent calculation, clustered regionally in East Anglia and the that ofM E Turner at 6.8 million, is some half --Bucking_ a million acres less than the total suggested hamshire area. Use of estate maps, tithe by this study, x7 For Wales, these figures documents and other records allowed the would lend support to the one million acres missing figure to be reduced to 5.8 per cent, a which Turner implies may be too high.~8 figure which is acceptable, though the The implications of this stretch beyond the regional concentration is a little disturbing. question of Parliamentary enclosure itself.. The problem in East Anglia, however, for if Parliamentary enclosure dealt with appears to arise largely from the well-known more land than previously suggested, the peculiarities of field-systems and tenure impact of non-Parliamentary enclosure patterns in that area. 2° Significantly, many must have been proportionately less. Wor- acts avoid the conventional tile's recent calculations of seventeenth- references normally made elsewhere to century enclosure, for example, appear to 'open and commonable fields', referring make inadequate allowance for that during instead to 'intermixed lands', and the use of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the various ancillary sources mentioned

'~J D Chambers and G E Mingay, The A~,ricultural Rel,ohttion "~ See J R Wordie, 'The Chronology of English Enclosure, 175o-188o, z966, p 77, suggest 'over' six million. See also D N 15oo-19r4', Econ Hist Re1,, 2nd series, XXXVI, z983, pp MeCloskey, 'The Economics of Enclosure: a Market Analysis', 483-5o5; J Chapman, 'The Chronology of English Enclosure, a in W N Parker aud E L Jones, European and Their comment' and reply byJ R Wordie in Econ Hist Ret,, 2nd series, Markets, Princeton, 1975, p 128; W E Tare, The Em~lish Villal~e XXXVII, x984, pp 557-562. Contmlmit), and the Enclosure Mol,e,tents, 1967, p 87. '° See, for example, M Postgate, 'Field Systems of East Anglia', in ,v Turner, Enclosures hi Britain, p 2L A R H Baker and R A Butlin, Studies of Field Systcms in the British Jx Ibid, p 27. Ish's, Cambridge, x973. THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE 29 earlier confirms the view that much of the for the Holland division of and unspecified land in this county was already almost IO per cent for neighbouring enclosed. The movement here was thus Huntingdon. It was thus more important more akin to the modern French remembre- than field land in the former, and than ment or the Dutch ruilverkaveling, rather than pasture in the latter. the conventional English enclosures. Such The temporal pattern of meadow enclos- an interpretation would be consistent with ure follows closely that of open field, which Yelling's comments on Norfolk enclos- will be discussed shortly. Briefly, it shows a ures ~-~ and, if accepted, would reduce the general downward trend, falling from just amount of unspecified land to some 2.5 to 3 over 5 per cent of the pre-I75O total to just per cent. over I per cent in the second half of the Excluding the unspecified areas, the nineteenth century. Though the smallness of remainder was classified into four broad the figures makes analysis by decade categories: field land; meadow; common somewhat dubious, a similar trend is waste and pasture; and old enclosed land. detectable at this level, even to the extent of a The fourth of these has already been referred small percentage rise after the passing of the to, though it may be noted that its relative I836 General Enclosure Act. Such a close importance is marginally understated, not parallel with open field enclosure seems only because of the East Anglian problem, readily explicable, first because meadow was but also because old enclosures voluntarily usually, though by no means exclusively, exchanged were sometimes simply 'lost' in enclosed as part of the general abolition of larger allotments. Furthermore, many acts some kind of open , and specified that recent encroachments on the secondly because legally the process bore a common, normally under twenty-one years close resemblance to field enclosure: the old, should be regarded as part of that exact proportions of land held by each common, and the awards then often treated individual before enclosure were normally them as such without any special mention. It quite clearly established. It is perhaps for is unlikely, however, that this could have these reasons that both at the time and added more than o. I per cent at most to the subsequently, meadow has simply been total. lumped in with field land, though in The question of common meadow is one agricultural terms its role complimented the which has received short shrift in the pasture and waste as a support for stock. literature of the enclosure movement. In all In spite of this, it is obvious that the the discussion over the relative importance Parliamentary enclosure movement as a of arable and pasture in the process, the fact whole was primarily concerned with open that some enclosures consisted entirely or arable and open pasture. For England and largely of meadow has tended to be ignored. Wales 33.47 per cent of the identifiable In fact, only three of the sampled awards sample was field land and 59.67 per cent consisted solely of common meadow, but pasture, or approaching the one to two 228, or over 4o per cent contained at least proportions postulated by Philpott. 22 For some and sixty-one, or almost I I per cent of England alone, as would be expected, the the sample, were more than ~o per cent arable percentage was higher, at 39. I3 per meadow. Overall less than 3 per cent of the cent. Thus, even with due allowance for the sample total fell into this category, but problems already specified and for an locally its significance was greater. It element of sampling error, it seems clear that contributed more than IO per cent to the total :~G Philpott, 'Enclosure and Population Growth in Eighteenth -" J A Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in Etlgland, 145o-183o, Century England', Explorations in Ecot,omic History, x2, 1975, p x977, pp ~2-H. 36. 30 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW Parliamentary enclosure was primarily of their boundaries. The data were therefore concerned with common pasture and waste. reorganized on the basis of distance from the For any individual county, the maximum supposed centre. Inspection of the figures arable percentage was 79.25, for indicated a location somewhere in north- Huntingdonshire, though this was only central Northamptonshire as the geographi- marginally higher than a group of other cal centre of the high arable area, and an Midland counties. -'3 At the opposite end of arbitrary choice was made of an exact point the scale, the sample revealed no arable in in this area from which measurements were nine English counties. made. The distance of each of the sample enclosures from this selected point was then calculated, and the awards were regrouped III according to the distance band within which A clear geographical pattern emerges from they fell, the boundaries of the bands being at these figures. From a core area of adjacent 5o-kilometre intervals. The totals for each Midland counties the percentage of type were then recalculated for each of involved in the enclosure movement falls in a these 5o-kilometre bands. The pattern series of steep steps outwards to the which emerged from this strongly re- extremities of the country. Conversely, inforced the original conclusions (see Fig 2). waste and pasture rapidly comes to dominate The percentage of arable involved m the movement outside this Midland core enclosures dearly falls sharply with each with, on a county basis, sharp juxtapositions succeeding band, apart from a minor hiccup between counties showing a high arable at 300-350 kilometres, where the number of dominance and those highly dominated by awards involved had fallen greatly. _,6 It may pasture. Such a pattern accords in general be noted that only in the two innermost terms with that outlined by Slater and by bands does the amount of arable exceed that Gonner in the early years of this century, and of pasture and that in all the five outermost refined more recently by Turner. -'4 How- pasture accounts for more than 75 per cent of ever, the rate of fall in the proportion of the total. There is thus a very sharp spatial arable is much steeper than implied in these division of the enclosure movement earlier writings, and in particular the between a relatively small central area of the arable-dominated core emerges as a smaller, country where arable enclosure was the more restricted zone. Even counties such as norm and a much larger outer area where Oxfordshire and Nottinghamshire fall attention focused essentially upon common outside this zone, though arable is margin- waste. ally the biggest individual component in the There is obviously also a temporal, as well former. as a spatial, aspect to this pattern. The mean Such a pattern carries implications of some date of enclosure for these distance bands form of spatial diffusion process, and thus rises steadily and consistently from 1792 in lends support to the suggestion made but not the innermost to I825 between 30o and 35o developed in detail by Turner.-'s However, kilometres; only the outermost band, with a the nature of the county limits is such that mere two enclosures, breaks this pattern. any process of this kind can be obscured, or This may be illustrated more clearly by indeed overemphasized, by the peculiarities reorganizing the data into 20 year periods, for the arable percentage then falls steadily -'3 Buckinghamshire, , Northampton, Rutland and Warwick all exceeded 75 per cent. from 63.63 before I75O to nil after 1870 (see :4 G Slater, The English Peasantr}, and the Enclosure qf Comnlon Fig 3). In this case the one exception to the Fields, 19o7; E C K Gonner, Conlmon Land and Inclosure, I912; Turner, English Parliamemary Enclosun,. -'~' The outer ring at 350.-400 km has been omitted, since it contains as Ibid, pp 99-1oo and 126. only two awards. THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE 3 T

LAND TYPE PERCENTAGE BY DISTANCE

100%

90%- :::::::: iiiiiiii ii!iiiii!ii!i!iii i!!ii!iii!iiiii!iliiiiiiii!i i!iiiiii

80% - ...... ili ...... ~\\\\\~ Pp?turp.: ::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::: ~xxxxx~ ...... :1: ...... 70% - ~%%\%%x ...... :1:::::::::: ...... ili ...... 60% - ...... ili ...... \~\\\\x Meaoow • ...... :I: : : : : : : : :I ...... t- 80% - ] ~.~ ...... :1:::::::::: :::::::: 40% - ~\~\\~ ::::::::: :::::::::::::::: :::::::: :::::::: ~\\\\\~" ::::::::: :::::::::::::::: ::::::::; ...... 30% - ~\\\\',q ...... :::::::: N\N\\\~ ~:~::~ :~:~:~:~::~ ...... 20% - ~ ~ :::::::::::::::: :::::::: :::::::: ~\\\\~ N\\\\\~ :::::::::::::::: :::::::: :::::::: 10% - ...... ~\\\~'~ ...... it: ......

O% ~! xxxxxxx ~'~x~ ...... :::::::: 01049 50~o99 1001o149 1501o199 20010249 250t0299 3001o349 350to399

Distance ( km )

FIGURE 2

LAND TYPE PERCENTAGE BY DATE

100% ...... inclosures ...... =...... ,

...... , ...... i ...... , ...... i 90% ...... , ...... i

, Pasture ...... :::::::: :::::::: ::::::::I::::::::: 80% ::::::::: '.::::::: :::::::: :::::::: ::::::::I:::::::::i ::::::::: :::::::: ...... i ...... i ...... i ::::::::: :::::::: ...... i ...... 70% ~ :::::::: ::::::::: ::::::: ::::::::I::::::::: ...... i ...... I nneanow i ...... i ...... ::::::::: ...... ,...... ai ...... 60%- ~\\\\~"~ : : : : : : : : :::::::: ::::::: ::::::::I:::::::::

...... i ...... 50% - Nxx~%x~ ] ~\\\\"q ::::::: :::::::::::::::::: 4o"~o - ~\\\\N ~\\\\',~ ::::::: :::::::::::::::::: ~\\\\.~, ...... ::::::: ::::::::::::::::::

N-Nra~le ~" %" 30% - ,\\\\\\\ ~\\\\"~ ~\\\\',q :::::::: ...... :::::::::;::::::::: ,~\-\\\\'~ ~\\\\N ...... " ...... , ...... i ...... ~\\\\',q ...... - ...... "%%%%%%% ~\\\\',,~ ...... , ...... ~N,.~"~ ,,,\\\\.~, ...... *\\\\N~\\\\N iiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiii 10% - 4%N~\\N'~ ,',,,\\\\\N ~\\\\~, ,NNNN\"~ ...... ~\\\\'q ::::::::::::::::::: ...... ~\\\\N ...... " ...... i!iiiiiil O% Pro 1750 1750 1770 1790 1810 1630 1850 Post1869 to t~ to to to to 1769 1789 1809 1829 1849 1869

FIGURE 3 i,

3 2 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW trend, as might be expected, is in the period fourteen awards, or 2.5 per cent of the 183o to 185o, when the effects of the 1836 sample, falling between these figures. 29 It General Act produced a slight rise. Although thus becomes possible to regard most the decline in the relative importance of enclosures as falling into either an 'essentially arable in the process with time has been well arable' or an 'essentially pasture' group. documented in the literature, 27 these calcula- The implications of this finding may tions emphasize a number of points. First, it perhaps be best illustrated by means of seems clear that the decline was a steady and boxplots showing the distribution by date of continuing one, rather than reflecting a the predominantly pasture and predom- sudden response to any external event, such inantly arable enclosures for each 5o as the Napoleonic Wars. 2s Secondly, even kilometre band (see Fig 4). This allows a the 1836 General Act, specifically designed direct visual comparison, not only between to boost field enclosure and indeed theor- arable and pasture within the same region, etically restricted solely to it, failed to but also between the patterns for either produce any dramatic change, for the group in different regions. In accordance proportion, though rising briefly, never with convention, the limits of the boxes have attained as much as one third of the total. been drawn at the 'hinges', or quartile Thirdly, even at the time of maximum values, and the 'whiskers' representing the emphasis on arable, not far short of 40 per outlying values have been omitted in order cent of the land involved fell into other to focus attention on the main time period categories. involved for each group. 3° From this it can be seen that in all cases the median enclosure year for the 'arable' group IV is much earlier than for the 'pasture', with It might be argued that these conclusions are only one case where the gap is less than ten simply a reflection of the obvious fact that the years. In other words, at any given distance amount of open arable available to enclose from the central core, a predominantly declined sharply with distance from the arable enclosure was likely to be undertaken Midland core. If the use of Parliamentary at a substantially earlier date than a enclosure exhibited a simple diffusion predominantly common waste one. process, spreading outwards with time from Furthermore, arable enclosures tend to the centre, then clearly the percentage of cluster much more closely about the median. arable dealt with in each time period would Thus, within any given area, field enclosure fall for that reason alone. In reality the took place within a relatively limited situation appears more complex. timespan, whereas enclosure of common One of the more surprising features and waste was a far more drawn-out process. revealed by this investigation was the degree Comparison of the plots for the same to which individual enclosures were category through time reveals fi~rther strongly polarized into those which were significant features. For the arable group, largely concerned with open arable and those though there is a marked time-lag between

which were largely of open waste. Most -'9 These figures may be marginally affected by those awards contained either more than 6o per cent containing substantial amounts of unspecified land. ~o Tile limits of the boxes are represented by the 'hinges', or arable, or less than 25 per cent, with only quartiles, See P F Velleman and D C Hoaglin, Applications, Basics, and Computing of Exploratory Data Analysis, Boston, 2~ Ibid, pp 63-'93. Mass, 1981, pp 73-74 and 79--81. The values outside the boxes ~s This point was developed more fully in a paper entitled have been omitted for clarity. Tile notches included on tile 'Structural Change in Eighteenth-Century English Agricul- diagram give an indication of the confidence levels of the ture', presented to the Permanent Europea~ Cot~rence .for the conclusions, but only for comparisons between any two pairs. Study of the Rural Landscape, Rastede, I985, and to be published See R McGill, J w Tukey and W G Larsen, 'Variations of Box in the Proceedings (forthcoming, 1987). Plots', The American Statistician, 32, 1978, pp I2-I6.

i THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE 33

l i:':ii:!,eiiii!,~ti~,gi~<7:,'!{:~'~,:iv:m¢!~ii~,;?.iii::::~:~-,',<~, .:'.,,:ii:,'.:.:!~;:,:,:,,,i~i~,i:;:mi::r*.~,:,>/~;~; :.,qi1 6LI, <~ + > I

l: ::' : ! :;: ii,~i,:.: :: :: > ':~ :: : : :~:i;~ ~ -:~,:;.i:i~;i?,,;] I < + > I

It-, : ...... t I < + > I

I,<~..... 4" i I ~L t <; + > I

I<; ;:> I < I 4- > I ;E [ ~; ,,,,,,>,;, ..... I ;[ ,.,it. .... ~ [

17'70 17'80 17'90 1800 18'10 1820 1830 1840 1850 18'60 18'70 Years

Pasture Jr Median I---'-] Arable < > Notches

FIGURE 4

the centre and the next ring, subsequent however, the beginning of the main arable rings show an almost identical median date. movement may be dated at 1782, twenty- In contrast, the waste group shows a general two years before the waste, and the time-lag increase in date with distance. Thus it would of the median values is eighteen years. seem that the use of Parliamentary means to enclose open field, though it began earlier in the midland core, spread rapidly to all parts V of the country, with distance from that core In summary, a number of suggestions about being of no significance; for waste enclos- the nature of the Parliamentary enclosure ures, on the other hand, the further the area process emerge from this investigation. to be enclosed lay from the core, the longer First, it would seem that the total amount of the delay in enclosing was likely to be. land affected by the movement, and even the Taken together, these two conclusions amount of open or common land actually inevitably mean that the time lag between enclosed, was somewhat larger than most of arable and waste enclosures widened with the published figures would suggest. distance. As can be seen from the boxplots, Secondly, it is clear that the movement, the main part of the arable movement within taken as a whole, was principally concerned the central core can be dated to 1771, with with land reclamation, and the reorganiz- waste following only five years later; ation of open arable into compact, indi- similarly the median dates are only thirteen vidually held plots was a secondary feature. years apart. In the 2oo to 25o kilometre band, The enclosures of the Midland open field

i i 34 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW belt, often regarded as the 'typical' enclos- Most appear to have done so, especially since ures, are unrepresentative. Thirdly, arable it can be shown that some apparent laggards dominated the early part of the movement, had in fact been attempting to obtain though to nothing like the extent to which enclosures for long periods before the final waste dominated the later; from the start of passing of the acts, but had been delayed by the Napoleonic Wars onwards the waste was local complications. 33 It may therefore be the principal target of the enclosers. postulated that open-field was Fourthly, the patterns of enclosure for generally under stress by the I760s, 34 and mainly arable and mainly waste enclosures that once the concept of using an act of show significant regional differences, with Parliament had become firmly established in the former tending to occur throughout the the minds of landowners, it was adopted country at roughly the same date, apart from nationwide. As for the initiation of the use of a small core area, whereas the latter lagged acts of Parliament in the Midland core, the markedly with distance. evidence from this work would support These conclusions must emphasize the Turner's contention that the system was need for caution in seeking general explan- under particular stress in this area, and that aticins for the Parliamentary enclosure here shortage of pasture was the trigger. 3s movement. Many of the recent macro-level Certainly the vast majority of the early analyses have tended to focus almost sample in the Midlands was characterized by exclusively upon the utility or otherwise of very small areas of common waste, and any the open fields, and the consequent advan- desire to exploit a market for stock products tages and disadvantages of their abolition. 3~ on a large scale would have made enclosure If, however, common and waste dominated imperative. the movement, as this paper has attempted to For waste enclosure, any explanation demonstrate, the whole question of the must incorporate an attempt to account for functioning of the open fields, though some element of spatial diffusion through important, becomes of lesser significance. time. The mechanisms responsible for this Much of the explanation for the general form are not clear, but since some waste was of the Parliamentary enclosure movement normally included in field enclosures the idea must be sought in factors encouraging an must have been widely familiar in the extension of the cultivated acreage. Midlands at an early date. Its transfer to However, the different patterns of field mainly waste enclosures would thus have and waste enclosure might suggest that the been a minor and obvious step. Elsewhere, movement was not one but two, and that where open fields were relatively more two different explanatory frameworks are sparsely distributed, the procedures for required. The clustering of most field Parliamentary enclosure were often unfam- enclosures within a relatively short time- iliar at an early date, and outside landowners span would appear to answer one of the had to instruct their local agents in how to go principal criticisms raised by Dahlman about the business. 36 In these areas, no against the work of Cohen and Weizman and general body of local expertise was built up of McCloskey, namely that if the open field by the occasional early field enclosures; nor system reached some sudden crisis point were the wastes - large moorlands, for

landowners would have reacted rapidly. 3-~ n See, for cxaxnple, J Chapman, 'The Parliamentary Enclosures of s, e.g. D N McCloskey, 'The Enclosure of Open Fields' Journal of West Sussex', Southern Histor},, 2, 198o, pp 85-87. Economic History, 32, 1972, pp 15-35. .~4 The relative merits of the explanations for this offered by Cohen ~z C J Dahlman, The Open Field System and Bel,ond, Cambridge, and Weizman and by McCloskey are beyond the scope of this 198o, pp 58-64; J S Cohen and M L Weitzman, 'Enclosures and paper. depopulation: a Marxian analysis', in Parker and Jones, ~s Turner, English Parliamentao, Enclosure, pp 145-15 L European Peasants and Their Markets, pp 161-178; McCloskey, •~' e.g. West Tanficld. North County Record Office, 'The Economies of Enclosure'. associated papers to enclosure.

! !i: THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE 35 example - necessarily very similar in nor do they deny the obvious truth that the physical character to the absorbed decision as to when to enclose, or indeed as part of the open field system. It may be whether to do so, was ultimately made for postulated that actual demonstrations of the each locality by individuals, on the basis of effectiveness of enclosure of commons in the their own judgements and perceptions. locality were necessary to stimulate a major However, neither of these explanations on enclosure movement, and that this idea its own would appear to offer a satisfactory spread but slowly. explanation of the patterns presented here Such suggestions do not negate the idea and these speculations might help to fill the that the overall form of the process was gap. stimulated by, for example, interest rates, 37

.w McCloskey, 'The Economics of Enclosure'.

Notes on Contributors

MP, SIMON A C PENN read medieval and modern history DRJOHN CHAPMANis a Senior Lecturer in Geography at at the University of Birminghana before receiving an Portsmouth Polytechnic. He has published papers on SSRC research studentship enabling him to work the development of the Portsmouth area and has towards a Phl) thesis on fourteenth-century Bristol. undertaken research on agricultural change in Britain The thesis is now in the final stages of completion. in the nineteenth century. For some years his principal Until recently he was a research fellow at the research has been concerned with a nation-wide survey University of Birminghana working on a study of of Parliamentary enclosure, and has produced a wage-earners and wage-earning in late fourteenth- number of articles on this topic. century England. This forms part of the ESRC research programme on the history of prices and DR E J T COLLINS is Director of the Institute of incomes in pre-industrial England. Agricultural History and Museum of English Rural Lifel and member of the Department of Agricultural DR GAVIN BOWIE works for the Hampshire County Economics and Management in the University of Museum Service, and is currently curator of the new Reading. Having published extensively on modern Eastleigh Museum, which opened last year. He has British agricultural history, notably on labour and been researching into and lecturing about aspects of technology, he is currently editing volume VII of the modern agricultural history since 1978 , mainly in his Cambridge Agrarian Histor), of England and Wales, spare time. He has just completed an asses,.:mentof the I85o--I914, and completing his research project on the role and function of watermeadows in the rural history of agricultural edge tools, and a historical and economy of Wessex, 164o-I85O, and is currently contenaporary survey of five agricultural estates in investigating the world of enriching and exciting southern and midland England for the Ernest Cook manures in English agriculture in the first half of the Trust. nineteenth century. (continued Oll pa W 4 6 )