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 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 - 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 , 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. On I2 March the preparation consented that the same should be inclosed.TM of the Bill was placed in the hands of Mr But a counter-petition received by the House Berkeley, a fellow landowner and relative by on I I April from "several freeholders and pro- marriage of the Leighs. On the ~.oththe solicitor prietors on behalf of themselves and others..." is found "attending the Commons for a list of proves this statement to be false. The solici- the Committee." On the same day he notes tor's statement of the case earlier in the same that "a messenger and letter were sent [by him- year had also referred to the fact that a quarter self] to Mr Major and six other Members of the thirty-three interested proprietors op- requesting their attendance on the Commons posed the enclosure?3 Other similar cases Committee on the 25th instance." Finally, on exist, x4 the eve of the meeting of the committee, the In such instances it seems that the actual same gentleman is found "attending Mr course of events owed more to the personalities Beman [J. H. Leigh's nominee as commis- of M.P.s than to the framework of established sioner] this Day as to the Opposition and procedure. This makes it worth looking again advising him thereon." The Committee duly at these figures, and in particular at their rela- met, and the Bill ultimately passed up to the tionship to the petitioners. Lords, where the same procedure was acted out. On 3 April there were dispatched "a letter II and messenger to the Earl of Guilford to attend When we turn from these general considera- the Lords Committee on Tuesday next, and the tions to look more closely at the Warwickshire like to Lord Hawke and the Bishop of Glouces- evidence we find that the Leigh family estate ter." records contribute some interesting informa- The actual pattern of involvement in enclo- tion with a bearing on this question. It proved sure, as in other areas of economic activity in possible to turn up, for example, a day-by-day Warwickshire, suggests that the initial step was description of the task of steering a draft Bill dictated largely by personal considerations. The career of Sir Charles Mordaunt illustrates ~2 On the testimony of Mr iN. Masters and Useby Holms; It.C.ff., xxI, zo March I73o, p. 507. A second this point. Representing his county for forty petition was received by the Committee, z March I73I : years in the Commons, he presented the Com- ibid., p. 654. mittee Report on twenty-two of thirty-eight 13 "A True State of the Case...," copy in Warwicks. R.O., ref. Z./I2/I-2. 15 The Leigh MS. relates to Warwickshire's most a4 Initiation in the Lords probably concealed the extensive landed estate: Birthplace Library, Stratford-on- opposition of the body of cottagers at iNuneaton Avon; Longborough Papers, ser. B, box 2, bundle 4: J (I73o), referred to in Compton-Bracebridge i~.IS., box headed "Expenses Account, As to Obt. Act, 23 November H.R./35. For petition see: H.L.aT., xxm, p. 616; Report, 1793, J. H. Leigh, and Others"; notes dated 15 Feb. x793 ; P. 637. 2o March I793 ; 2 April x793. ; i

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Io4 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW Warwickshire Bills passing through the House ford, daughter of Sir Justinian Isham, was in between I736 and I769. But as lord of the both instances the principal beneficiary. 19 manor of Wellesbourne Mountford his was the Other Warwickshire personalities whose very first Warwickshire petition to be recorded initiation into parliamentary enclosure activity in the Commons Journal in I73o. 16 He was the took on a distinctly personal colouring included principal figure also in the petition three years William Throckmorton Bromley, heir of an later to re-allot the common fields of Welles- ancient family with Jacobite connections, and bourne Hastings. Finally, in I736 Mordaunt Thomas Skipwith. The latter was promoted presented his first Commons Committee into his own former county seat in I77O by his Keport which was on behalf of the neighbour- kinsman William, Earl Craven. From that time ing parish of Alderminster. Here two of his Skipwith became as important in carrying Wellesbourne tenants, Thomas Aylesworth through local enclosure Bills, including several and Thomas Venors, were also employed as on behalf of his own family, as Mordaunt had local award commissioners (Aylesworth's first been earlier in the century? ° It is noteworthy appearance had been as commissioner at that his father, Sir Francis, and other relatives Wellesbourne Hastings, but neither figured were amongst the county's foremost enclosing again after the Alderminster award). These landowners in those years. details illuminate a pattern which was to be In the use of fiiends and relatives to advance repeated in later legislation, as the career of Sir territorial and personal ambition a further R.oger Newdigate illustrates. Making his first notable local figure was the first Viscount appearance during the years I742-7,Newdigate Beauchamp, later first Earl (I75O) and Marquis went on to represent Oxford University from (I793) of Hertford. According to Horace WSI to W8o without a break. According to Walpole his principal aim in life was to secure a Namier he took his parliamentary duties excep- marquisate, and in fact the evidence shows that tionally seriously, which makes it the more he had hopes of grasping a dukedom. 21 Though astonishing that his first active participation in during his long life he held lucrative political Warwickshire enclosure legislation was as office, the road to tile latter prize lay also principal petitioner in the Chilvers Coton Bill through tile amassment of a landed income of I76437 He assisted after that in tile prepara- which would serve to recommend his eleva- tion of a number of Warwickshire Bills, cul- tion. minating in that ofBedworth (r 769), where his The return on the Marquis's Warwickshire father had developed the family coal-mines; property rose between W76 and W97 fi'om Sir Roger took the lead in handling the draft £2,376 to £5,9o6, 22 an increase which reflected legislation, presenting the R.eport from the an attempt to round out and consolidate his Commons Committee himself. However, he seat at l~agley. Much of this rent-rise can be appears to have lent his assistance on only two traced to large-scale pre-enclosure land pur- further occasions, both in the years I77o-I.1s chase and post-enclosure improvement within A similar spectacle is offered by the conduct the adjoining parishes of Binton and Old of the Isham family of Northamptonshire who Stratford. To assist in the task of consolidating represented their county without interruption his influence in the Commons, Hertford found throughout the years I698-W7z. They assisted places for no less than six sons in the lower in the preparation and reported on only two Warwickshire Bills: those for Flecknoe (I73o) io H.C.ff., xxI, pp. 507, 654, 8z7. Ibid., xxvu, pp. 676, 743. and Wolfhamcote (1757), where Hester P,.ayns- 20 His first act on arrival was to present the Committee Report for Stretton-on-Fosse, where his father was prin- 16 H.C.J., xxI, p. 44L cipal owner: H.C.J., xxxI, z o March 177 ~, P. 27 I. i7 L. Namier and J. Brookes, The House of Con,motu, 2~ Namier and Brookes, @. eit., II, p. 4z4; Warwicks. I754-,9o, x964, m, pp. x96-7. R.O. : Seymour Ragley Collection, C.R. i x4, A/345- is I77z was the year of the Bedworth award. ,.2 Ibid., Rentals I776-97, C.R. II4, A/i9z-3 ; zo8.

:J PARLIAMENT AND ENCLOSURE Io5 House (leavingout of account his able brother, could succeed in establishing. The enclosure of General Conway). "... What with sons and the tiny parish of R.adway, which contained the [[i daughters, and boroughs, and employments of whole of his estate, found him with a quite all kinds I have never," exclaimed one unkind extraordinary fund of social and political good- observer, "heard of such a trading voyage as his will to call upon. Of help in this respect was an Lordship has proved.' ,25 amateur interest in architectural design which Given this background it is no surprise to he shared with Thomas Prowse, Member for find that the preparation of the Binton Bill was Somerset (z74o-67). The two had accomplished placed in the hands of General Conway and the the plan of Hagley Hall for Sir G. Lyttelton, brother of the Earl of Warwick. The son of described as the closest political intimate of the Lord North and Sir K. Lawley were nominated Grenviltes and of Pitt. 2v In a fascinating note to to draft that of Shottery (Old Stratford). The Miller, Lyttelton states that "as his mote to- appearance of North, his first in connection wards the expense of inclosure he encloses a with a Warwickshire enclosure, was separated note to enable him to wait with less incon- by only three Bills from his own petition to venience for the good effects of Mr. Pitt's more enclose theWarwickshire parish of Shotteswell powerful friendship. ''2s An entry in Miller's (I793). Here we find that through the good yearly accounts duly describes receiving the offices of Lawley he received compensation for note, which was for £50, from Lyttelton. ~9 z9½ yardlands in the face of substantial oppo- When in time his Bill came before the House sition from the owners of 9 of the remaining the list of Members appointed to the Commit- 2i. 24 Hertford and Lawley were linked by local tee is found to commence with the names of politics. The former's power base in Coventry Mordaunt and Prowse, and goes on to record was used to challenge the political dominance of two Grenvilles and Pitt, along with a host of Warwickshire by the Old Tory gentry, while local personalities, s° Not surprisingly the rela- Lawley represented a similar challenge from tionship between landowner and legislator is the commercial interests of Birmingham. ~5 often difficult to disentangle. This is particu- At Paul Methuen, the Earl's larly true of political connections. Such an close friend and client in the borough seat, was instance is afforded by the Foleshill Bill which involved with only two Bills (Alcester Heath Lord Guernsey helped to prepare. The leading and Warwick). 26 The Earl had an interest in beneficiary was Kichard Hopkins, and the link both Bills, and both encountered notable local with Guernsey appears to be through William opposition, leading in the case of Warwick to Northey, a friend of the Earl of Aylesford, the the presentation of a counter-petition. former's father. Northey sat for Maidstone in Several case studies demonstrate that this use the Earl's interest, and was also married to the of relatives and friends was not confined to sister of Kichard Hopkins, whose inheritance great county landowners; the lesser gentry pur- came to the Northeys in I799 .31 Tiffs example sued the same practice whenever opportunity highlights the risk in making assertions about offered. The example of Sanderson Miller, a the absence of connections between petitioner gentleman of quite small estate, offers perhaps and legislator. the most vivid illustration of the political con- ~; Ibid.,'p. 336. nections which a man of even modest fortune ~.s A. C. Wood (ed.), Sanderson Miller Diaries, z749-5o, ,.3 Quoted in L. Namier, The Stnlcture o/Politics at the z756--7, 1975, Warwieks. R.O.: C.R. I382/I; 1382132; Accession of George III, 196o, p. 400. L. Dickens and M. Stanton (eds), An Eighteenth Century ..4 H.C.J., XLVm, Petition, p. 221 ; Report, p. 7~8. Correspondence, I9IO, p. 348. .-5 Namier and Brookes, ol). cir., I, pp. 399-403 ; n, pp. "~"A. C. Wood (ed.), Aecounls of S. Miller, z74~-59 , 24-5; Namier, op. cit., p. lO3; W. B. Stephens (ed.), Warwicks. R.O. : C.R. 125/B/5, Dec. 1756. I am indebted V.C.H. Warwickshire, wn, 1969, 'Coventry Politics' by to Mr Wood for additional information on Miller. K. J. Allison, pp. 248-55. 30 H.C.J., xxvn, pp. 4o4, 4z9. ,.6 He had hopes of a peerage, but died still a commoner; al Namier and Brookes, op. tit., nI, p. 213 ; Namier, op. Namier and Brookes, op. cir., m, p. 134. cir., p. 114. I06 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY 'REVIEW In practice we find that a very substantial favoured the nomination of a local M.P. with a proportion of leading beneficiaries under considerable fund of experience in overseeing Warwickshire awards, regardless of rank, had this type of draft Bill in the House and in Com- access to the Commons through relatives and mittee. At the same time it appears customary friends.3= Furthermore, some appear to have to appoint a friend, relative, or client to watch acquired a seat themselves merely in order to over the interests of the principal petitioner. .I see such legislation through the House. One Tate's figures for Oxfordshire enclosures lend such figure, Jolm Spencer of Althorp, over the themselves to such an interpretation: he records Northamptonshire border, sat in the Com- I56 Members taking part in enclosure proceed- mons (in the interest of the Earl of Warwick) ings on 756 "occasions" over the whole period for only just over four years, between 1756 and I757-I843; but the significant point is that a I76I. Significantly his short legislative career small group of eleven M.P.s participated on is found to coincide with the introduction of more than ten "occasions".~3 This special the only Warwickshire Bills (Priors Hardwick group we should see as the experienced local and Marston x757-8) in which he had a per- Members, like Mordaunt and Skipwith in sonal interest as principal landowner. Warwickshire. Since Tate's table is an enumera- One reason why this feature of enclosure tion not of Bills, but of flae three "occasions" legislation has been missed in the past lies in the when M.P.s were nominated to "prepare fact that after W6o the Journal neglects to pro- and bring in," to present, and finally to report vide the names of Members nominated to on a Bill, the appearance of I45 of his Mem- constitute the Committee• Fortunately, in bers on ten "occasions" or less meant each was Warwickshire the movement began unusually involved with at most three or four separate early, so that the pattern described above Bills• stands out more clearly than elsewhere. The results of an inquiry into the personalities who III proposed or reported on draft Bills in War- One can take issue with Tate on other wickshire over the period W3o-79 show that matters. The Mordaunts, Cravens, Willough- a total of seventy-one such draft Bills were bys, Throckmortons, Bromleys, and Skip- successfully initiated in the Commons be- withs formed part of a closely knit association tween these dates. In over half a specific of country gentlemen linked by marriage personal connection existed between the prin- alliance and political obligation• Both Mot- cipal petitioner and at least one of the M.P.s daunt and Newdigate were recognized leaders who took a Land in the way described above. of the old country Tories, bound to those The daim made in Tate's pioneering study that figures at the centre of local politics whose such a connection did not exist on a large scale names had in I72i been dispatched to the should perhaps be treated therefore with some Pretender as likely supporters. Claims like caution. those of Tate which seem to endow such per- If one asks a further question, namely in sonalities with a sense of responsibility "to the what number of instances the leading petitioner community at large" are not wholly accurate, had a relative or friend sitting in one of the two given the social climate of that age. Houses, then the answer is in at least sixty out of It is true that amongst a handful of county eighty cases (this includes nine Bills initiated in M.P.s self-interest transcended the ownership the Lords between I72o and I742 ). of a particular landed estate. This was true for Another point arises out of this discussion. example of Sir Thomas Skipwith, found The conventional practice appears to have shouldering the main burden of parliamentary work on Mordaunt's retirement. His estates ~ Namier noted that "In... old aristocratic houses or •.. the aftermath of great men.., the predestination of were spread widely throughout the county, Parliament extended even to younger sons," op. cir., p. 3. ~ Tare, loc. tit., table 2, p. 219. I:7 !I PARLIAMENT AND ENCLOSURE I07 extending from Monk's Kirby in the north to obscurity, or cause of confusion in each. ''Ss Bidford-on-Avon in the far south, s4 His grand- It is true of course that the practice of re- father, Sir Fulwar, and other relatives were quiring to know the names of all proprietors, ' active in launching the earliest Warwickshire and whether or not they agreed to an enclosure, turnpike schemes, while the enclosure Acts continued to offer some safeguard to the often also included the construction of feeder humbler class of owner. To set against this is the village roads in the remoter parts. 35 From the progressive reticence of the official record on swelling traffic in food and other commodities opposition of one sort or another. Miss which arose fi'om these diverse activities, Skip- Lambert notes that after 1741 the practice of with was himself one of the first to gain. submitting enclosure petitions to the detailed Such promotion schemes held out other scrutiny of a parliamentary Committee, and attractions. One was the build-up of goodwill the subsequent publication of its report in the with powerfully placed figures in the City and Journal, were abruptly ended? ° Also aban- in Parliament. So in 1774 we find Skipwith doned fi'om 176o was the practice of listing in reporting on the Bill to raise £5,00o for the the published account of the Report on the important turnpike running the length of the Bill the actual names of individuals refusing, county from Birmingham down to the Oxford- or otherwise not signing, and their share shire border at Warmington. sG This came of the common-field yardlands. After that within three years of his Bill to enclose Burton time dissent was recorded merely in terms Dassett, adjoining the road at Warmington, of the aggregate value of the "interest", one- where the petitioners consisted of two of the sixth of which was made up not of land but powerful Grenville brothers and Sir P,[. of tithe (converted into land only after en- Ladbroke, the distiller and Member for the closure). City of London? 7 It might be fitting at this juncture to turn Figures like Skipwith do nothing to weaken back to the broader framework of the enclosure the suggestion that many legislators were acting process. What gives final point to the dis- to serve personal interests of one kind or cussion is local information showing that oppo- : another. Doubts then arise as to how far such sition to enclosure Bills from one quarter or men would be open to the just claims of the another was by 11o means a rare event. A de- larger community. During the course of a scription of the protracted nature of the legis- debate in 178o on the Ihnington, Warwick- lative business is recorded in the Stockton shire, Bill, Lord Chancellor Thurlow voiced register. The entry notes that "an enclosure of i such feeling. We are told that he "turned his Stockton parish was attempted in the year 1778 attention to . . . the mode in which Private and [again in the year] z786, but without : [enclosure] Bills were permitted to make their Success. In the year 1791 the Inclosure business way through both Houses... to the great was resumed, and after many Meetings and i injury of many, if not the total ruin of some Debates the Bill was at last signed in the private families. Fie then proceeded to examine Presence of Sir T. Biddulph..."4° In an exami- every provision of the [Ilmington] Bill point- nation of I 7o Nottinghamshire petitions cover- ing out some act of injustice, impartiality, ing the whole period I743-18z6, W. E. Tate found only twenty-nine instances of&lay of a 84 j. M. Martin, Warwickshire and the Parliamentary year or more, while in no more than fifteen of Enclos~,re Movement, unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Birmingham, these cases was there even the possibility of I965, n, App. XXlV. 3~ See the 'Act for Repairing the Road leading from Dunchurch to... Meriden-Hill...', zo Geo. I, and a 3a Debate: 'Commutation of Tithes for Land...', loc. similar Act of 3 Geo. IT, for the road from Stratford-on- cir., pp. 59-6z. Avon to the '%.. top of long Compton Hill." 39 Lambert, op. cit., pp. z3z-3. 36 H.C.J., XXXlV, p. 599. 4°Warwieks. R.O.: Stockton Parish Register, I777- 37 Ibid., xxxIn, p. z33 ; Report, p. 27L z8o9, D.R.58.

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J io8 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW opposition.4~ In Warwickshire the years I73o- employment of the lawyers' expression "neu- bt 99 saw izI petitions originating from Ioz ter" to distinguish those proprietors who, in townships. No less than twenty-two of these while refusing to sign, declared they would not le failed, leading in all instances to a delay of positively oppose the Bill.~ b~ at least a year before the presentation of That opposition should be encountered from p, any further petition. There were, in ad- one quarter or another is hardly a matter for dition, nine cases where Bills were success- surprise. It was appreciated that once the Bill i~ b~ fully pushed through at the first attempt, but had become law there remained no possibility ir i where, nevertheless, evidence of opposition of reversing the process, and only the details of a exists. This took the form in almost all in- the survey remained to be agreed. In the words stances of either a counter-petition or the use of of one Warwickshire gentleman, "If anyone the procedure that all-comers should "have should find Fault and object against anything in voice" in the Committee. Of the total of thirty- the Act... as hard upon him. To be answered one cases described, all but five certainly arose there is nothing in it but what everyone out of opposition fi'om one quarter or another. approved under his Hand, and now it is Altogether it appears that twenty-five of the 'stablished by an Act must be submitted to and xoz townships saw the failure of at least one observed, therefore to no purpose to talk petition, the lodging of a counter-petition, or against it."~4 the opening of the Commons Committee in Given this background of uncertain success, order to swamp opposition. the appoinunent of relative or friend to intro- Parliamentary opposition was thus not duce and report on a Bill was a move which uncommon. As to its origin there must remain might crucially affect the chance of succeeding. doubt. Probably it arose in many cases less from He could influence the proposals so that the the smaller proprietors than from within the "interest" of the outright opponents was re- ranks of the gentry class, or from the Church duced to a nfinimuln, and could fashion the aggrieved at some technical detail or the details to the satisfaction of the more powerful choice of cormnissioners. Thus of the fifteen parties. Failure on one or other score clearly counter-petitions only five (those for Flecknoe, caused a number of Warwickshire Bills to be Atherstone, Priors Marston, Harbury, and lost, a very expensive penalty. Sutton Coldfield) originated with the less substantial proprietors. For this class parlia- IV mentary obstruction was too expensive a ven- To conclude: the purpose of this discussion has ture, and the hope of success too slender.~ In been to take a fresh look at the personalities general their antipathy found expression only who successfully carried through enclosure by in a refusal to sign the Bill. Even this degree of Act of Parliament during the eighteenth cen- resistance was glossed over after I77O by the tury. The idea that Members saw themselves as acting to fulfil an obligation towards their con- ~l W. E. Tate, 'Opposition to Parliamentary Enclosure stituents as a whole within the rural com- in Eighteenth Century England', Ag. Hist., xIx, I94S, p. x4L munity seems a little doubtful. 42 At Priors Marston (I757), where a faction of opposing Within the county community enclosure freeholders went so far as to present a counter-petition, the well-known surveyor G. Salmon noted the "strong commissioners were customarily nominated by opposition to this Inclosure... the Bill beinglltlgated in the interested parties; this pattern has been the House which increased the Expense prodigiously." It recognized for some time. We have put for- was also a factor in the high cost of other enclosures. See ward the suggestion that a similar tendency can expenses of the enclosures at Loxley, Gaydon, Saw- bridge, and Priors Marston in volume compiled by G. Salmon; photostat of original in Warwicks. R.O., Z.496 4,~ Close examination of the changing terminology (U). I am indebted to R. Chamberlain-Brothers for this allows of no other interpretation. reference. For initial concealment of opposition: H.C.ff., 4~ W. Bromley, in a letter relating to the enclosure of xxvII, p. 674. Bubbenhall, I726-33 : Warwicks. R.O. : Z.4H(S.M.). .T

I i J PARLIAMENT AND ENCLOSURE zo9 be traced within Parliament: watching over the dence hints at the likelihood that in practice its interests of the leading petitioner was one at business was conducted by a tiny handful of least of the two or three M.P.s nominated to interested M.P.s, as in the Lords. : bring in and report on each draft Bill. It proved The service of parliamentary friends was a possible to trace a link between landowner and matter of no small importance, since local M.P. in over half of seventy-one Bills coming information shows that actual opposition, and i before the House in the years I73O-79. Keflect- the consequent risk o£ a Bill failing, was quite ing this practice was the fact that no more than substantial in a number of instances. a handful of Members acted on more than half Finally, the intimacy outlined above between a dozen occasions. landowner and M.P. has a significance beyond The details contained in the estate papers of the limits of the present discussion. It offers a two Warwickshire landowuers,J. H. Leigh and key to an understanding of contemporary Sanderson Miller, confirm this evidence and criticism of the enclosure process, to which demonstrate that the principal petitioner took reference was made in the course of this more than a casual interest in the make-up of article. the Commons Committee: the available evi-

NOTES AND COMMENTS HISTORY TODAY (continuedfrom page 8z) Michael Crowder, newly appointed editor of History Today, plans to include in the magazine a new regular feature on historical monuments which The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to are being restored and opened to the public or are the retiring President, Miss Edith Whetham. not well known. The term "monuments" is taken broadly to include, for example, the Laxton open WINTER CONFERENCE, x979 fields, and members of this Society concerned with The Winter Conference will be held on Saturday, ones likely to be of interest to readers of History z December z979 jointly with the Historical Geo- Today are asked to get in touch with the feature graphy Research Group of the Institute of British editor, Dr David Starkey, of the London School of Geographers. The venue is the Polytechnic of Economics. Central London, New Cavendish Street, and the theme will be 'Distress and unrest in the country- SOUTHERN HISTORY side'. All inquiries should be addressed to Dr Southern History is the title of a new addition to the A. D. M. Phillips, Department of Geography, journals concerned with regional and local history. University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire ST 5 The editor is J. R. Lowerson, Centre for Continuing 5BG. Education, University of Sussex, and the annual subscription is £IO. Volume I is to be published in SPRING CONFERENCE, 1980 October 1979 (sub sequent annual issues in May) and The Spring Conference will be held at the Univer- includes, among others, articles on the decline of sity College of Wales, Aberystwyth, on 14-16 April Canterbury in the late Middle Ages, the Courtenay I98o; inquiries should be addressed to the Secre- Earls of Devon, the south-western rebellion of 1549, tary. Programme and booking forms will appear in the market towns of southern England i5oo-17oo, the February issue of the Review. and social crime in the rural south.