Members of Parliament and Enclosure: a Reconsideration

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Members of Parliament and Enclosure: a Reconsideration l ,] Members of Parliament and Enclosure: A Reconsideration By J. M. MARTIN HVaV. can remain little doubt that enclo- mittee for detailed scrutiny; one of the Mem- sure by Private Act, whatever its merits, bers described above then made the Report T laid a heavy burden of expense on the back to the House. A final Reading quickly owners of common-field land. 1 In addition, followed. It is significant that a substantial we have had the recent demonstration that in sample of those Warwickshire Bills where the Buckinghamshire the Act was accompanied by draft details encountered no opposition was a decline in original owners amounting to found to take on average no more than nearly 4o per cent for parishes enclosed be- twenty-one days in their progress through the tween I78o and i825. ~ Such conclusions House, from First Reading to Engrossment. prompt a reassessment of the personalities who The third quarter of the century found a large nevertheless successfully carried through this number of such proposals making their way type of legislation. through the House at the same time, in addition The view ofW. E. Tate, which has success- to a swelling in the tide of other types of legis- fully held the field for many years, was that the lation. In I78o this tendency attracted the evidence served "to forbid the conclusion that attention of the Lord Chancellor. During the Members of Parliament in general used their course of a broad attack on the whole machin- position as legislators in order to safeguard ery of enclosure by Private Act he observed their personal interests or those of their con- that he could "point out with certainty one stituents." The figures who engaged in this source of the evil... [which was] the rapidity work were seen as successfully resisting the with which private bills were hurried through temptation "to sink the legislator in the land- the committees of the other House...' '~ owner."8 The purpose of this present piece is to In a recent examination of these procedures reconsider that verdict in the light of an Miss Lambert noted that most of the criticism examination of the Warwickshire evidence on derives less from the eighteenth century than this topic. from the evidence of Select Committees of the I years I824-37. 5 This is no doubt true. Never- theless, she herself goes on to quote at length The first matter worth looking at is the actual from the I775 Committee to the effect that pattern of Commons procedure. As Tate "many Members of your Committee cannot showed, the practice was for the House to but remember the great Inconveniences which nominate two or three Members to oversee and were and much complained of... introduce a draft Bill. After a Second Reading felt, [that] Persons residing at a Distance... were put to this was duly submitted to a Commons Com- great Expences for an Inclosure... too late to x For the most recent study of costs see M. R. Turner, 'The Cost of Parliamentary Enclosure in Buckingham- have an opportunity of... laying their Obser- shire', Ag. Hist. Rev., xxL I973, pp. 35-46. vations upon such Bills before Parliament with : M. E. Turner, 'Parliamentary Enclosure and Land- Effect."~ ownership in Buckinghamshire', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxvIIL I975, pP. 569-75; J. M. Martin, 'The Small 4 'Commutation of Tithes for Land in Bills of Enclo- Landowner and Parliamentary Enclosure in Warwick- sure', Parliamentary History, xxu, 3o March I78x, pp. shire', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxxIz, 3, I979. 59-6x. a W. E. Tare, 'Members of Parliament and their Per- 5 S. Lambert, Bills and Acts: Legislative Procedure in sonal Relations to Enclosure', Ag. Hist., xxm, I949, Eighteenth Century England, I97I, pp. IoI-2, Iz9, H6. pp. xI8-2o. 6 Ibld., pp. I35-6. i I01 I i]r ~, 102 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW A further matter of some interest is the make- bridge collection; similarly the attempt in W78 up of the important Commons Committee to foist an enclosure on the cottagers of Sutton (omitted altogether from Tate's discussion). Coldfield and their counter-moves finds no Before I76o the Members were listed in the reference in the parliamentary record? Journal, and included between fifty and sixty- A further point is that the belief referred to five names. In the Lords, where the Committee by Miss Lambert that an enclosure ought to bore a similar unwieldy appearance, a provisory secure the support of three-quarters of the clause permitted any five peers to act as a interested parties is not wholly borne out by the quorum, and it is clear from Miss Lambert's Warwickshire evidence. The Commons Jour- study that a similar procedure was followed in nal sets out the details of support found in four- the Commons? There then arises the question teen agricultural townships, all successfully of how far Members nominated actually enclosed during the years I73o-6o. 1° This 1 attended such Committees. The example shows that 85 (27"4 per cent) of the 3 I2 inter- quoted at length by Miss Lambert is hardly ested parties had failed to sign the appropriate reassuring on this score. A Committee which draft Bill. In half the cases less than three- attracted much general interest held twenty quarters of the owners' signatures were meetings in all, but of forty-two Members only appended. The size of common-field holdings six attended more than twice, while of thirty- can also be gauged for thirteen of the town- five additional nominations only five ever ships, and this shows that the owners of 73~ actually served, s (ix'5 per cent) of 6z7~- yardlands had not In the light of such revelations Miss Lambert signed their approval of the draft schemes. concedes that uncertainty must remain over This sample relates, furthermore, to the early whether parliamentary scrutiny of enclosure decades of the movement, characterized by Bills could be regarded as adequate. She Miss Lambert as an era in which Parliament stresses, nevertheless, that the recognized pro- "conceived its function to be to authorize cedure of the two Houses did offer some pro- agreements arrived at, rather than to arbitrate tection; here the House of Lords Committee between parties. ''n Nevertheless, only nine of Books yield evidence that some care was taken twenty-seven Warwickshire Bills initiated in with technical difficulties which arose, and also the Commons before x76o were endorsed by with ensuring that the rules of procedure were the signatures of all the interested parties. followed. With all this, however, it must be There remains a further area of doubt. Miss said that in the illustrations which she puts for- Lambert rightly draws attention to the safe- ward the main benefit was in protecting and guard apparently offered by certain established clarifying the interests of the substantial land- practices, notably the requirement that all indi- owner and the rector. Whether the framework viduals with a claim to land affected by a Bill offered by the parliamentary process was able to extend protection to the rights of the larger 0 For the draft and final copies of the Atherstone peti- tion, together with the cottagers' counter-objections, all community and humbler COlnmon-field own- dating from the 173o's, see: Warwicks. R.O. : Compton- ers remains the nub of the issue. And here Bracebridge MS., box H.R./35; for a similar pattern several additional causes of doubt exist. of events at Sutton Coldfield in I778 see: Birming- ham Central Reference Library, Sutton Coldfield Mis- To begin with, where this larger community cellaneous Collection, no. 4245o9; fols. t9, a7 (I778, challenged a petition the occasion is not always 1824). recorded in the Journals, so that its relationship 10 The Journal also records nine other Bills where no dissenting names appear; four other Bills included are: with Parliament is partly obscured. To cite Bishops Tachbrook (tithe settlement only); Wilnecote examples: the Journal has no record of the I73 I (owners of 84 of 7oo acres refused to sign) ; Kenilworth petition relating to Atherstone, although this (forest, urban ; 12 of 69 owners refused); Flecknoe (Billin Committee from 11 March I73o to 2 March I731 ; 9 of 33 document survives in the Compton-Brace- owners refused; ultimately failed). Lambert, ol). tit., pp. ioo-i, s Ibid., p. ioo. n Lamb err, ol). cit., pp. 133, 136. i .1 PARLIAMENT AND ENCLOSURE Io3 should be approached personally to give their through the Commons. is This brought to consents; secondly that the Committee should light the suggestion that the principal land- be informed in writing whether each indi- owner (in this instanceJ. H. Leigh) was at some vidual was for or against the proposed change. pains to secure the attendance of particular Nevertheless, such a safeguard relied, if it was Members for the crucial Committee stage of to be effective, on accurate and disinterested enclosure Bills in which he had an interest. On reporting. That this was not forthcoming on I5 February I794 we find his town solicitor every occasion can be demonstrated from the "writing to Mr Leigh as to the Petition and the example of Bills which gave rise to counter- Opposition, and attending the Opposers' soli- petitions on behalf of the smaller proprietors. citor several times, explaining the Business, and Thus at Flecknoe Mr Digby and Sir J. Isham he recommending the Parties to give it up." were given leave on zo March 173 o to bring in The petition ill question was for an enclosure of a Bill. This followed their report on the petition the parish of Longborough over the Glouces- that "the Parties concerned have agreed and tershire border.
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