Enclosure Commissioners and Buckinghamshire Parliamentary Enclosure '/ By MICHAEL TURNER : 7 _~ q i I Reseat& has been published on such archi- r:rwF.~.N I738 and I865 there were over tects of the landscape as the surveyor and the I3o enclosure Acts in Buckinghamshire landscape gardeners; why not also on the archi- B affecting the whole or parts of more than tects of the Georgian enclosures?5 After all: I3O parishes out of~e approximately 22o in the "Behind file features of the landscape.., there county at the time. Over I66,ooo acres, or 35 are men, and it is men that history seeks to per cent of the county, was enclosed in a little grasp." They include enclosure commissioners, over I2o years. In comparative terms such a surveyors, clerks and solicitors, bankers, an density places the comity ninth overall in rank- assortment of labourers, and, of course, the ing order of counties, the preceding eight being landowners and their tenants, but as determi- in the south and east midlands, with file excep- nants of landscape change file concentration tion of the East Riding of Yorkshire? More im- must be on the commissioners and their sur- portant, however, is that parliamentary enclo- veyors. As architects of the cultural landscape sure in Buckinghamshire was concentrated in they have left their indelible mark for all to the five northern hundreds, part of the Midland wimess. ~ Plain, affecting 58 per cent of Cottesloe hun- dred, 48 per cent of Aylesbury hundred, 44 per II cent of Newport Pagnell hundred, 4I per cent For the earlier period of enclosure, essentially of Buckingham hundred, and 27 per cent of before the mid-I77o's, an enclosure commis- Ashendon hundred, compared with only 7 per sion might consist of five or more commission- cent and 9 per cent respectively for the Chiltern ers. Thereafter it was usual for only three to be hundreds of Burnham and Desborough. a The appointed, and a more formal procedure was combined density of enclosure for the five north- adopted at the same time. The enclosure Act ern hundreds was 44 per cent, placing them usually stated that each commissioner was the among file top six comities, a group which is specific representative of a particular landown- centred upon Northamptonshire and Bedford- ing interest: one for the lord of the manor, one shire, and includes Rutland, Huntingdon, Ox- for tile tithe owner, and one for the majority fordshire, and North Buckinghamshire.4 (by value) of the remaining landowners. This My thanks are due to Mr E. J. Davis and his staff at last was reckoned not as the numerical majority the County Record Office, Aylesbury, for assistance in the but rather in terms of the extent of land pos- completion of this research, and to Dr B. A. Holderness and Professor F. C. Spooner for helpful criticism of an sessed. Thus, if one landowner possessed 5I per earlier version of this article. cent of the parish lie would automatically be the 2 From G. Slater, The English Peasantry and the En- "majority of landowners." Recourse was usu- closure of Common Fields, I9o7, pp. I4o-z. See the revised ,:] figures in M. E. Turner, 'Parliamentary Enclosure and 5 The full quotation can be found in M. Bloch, The Population Change in England x75o-i83 o', Explorations Historian's Craft, English translation, Manchester, I954, in Econ. Hist., xtn, I976. p. z6. The last hundred in the county, Stoke, is situated in For example, E. G. R. Taylor, 'The Surveyor', Econ. ;! the Thames valley where 30 per cent of the land was en- Hist. Rev. xst set., xvIr, I947, PP. IZI-33, and some closed by Act. This was mainly common and waste, en- of her other works, for which see Trans. Inst. Br. Geog., closures symptomatic of the reclamation of marginal lands XLV, I968, pp. I8t-6; H. C. Prince, Parks in England, during the French Wars of r 793-I 815. Isle of Wight, x967; B. E. Coates, 'The work of Richard , i 4 The highest density of enclosure was in Northamp- Woods, landscape gardener, in the West Riding of tonshire, where over 50 per cent of the county was en- Yorkshire', Trans. Hunter Arch. Soc., vnI, x963, pp. )i closed between I7z7 and I815. z97-3o6. IZO BUCKINGHAMSHIRE ENCLOSURE COMMISSIONERS I2I ally made to the annual land tax assessments in ments compared with their scattered property order to establish this fact. The whole proce- in the former open fields. They may not have dure no doubt prompted the contemporary ob- received a proportionate quantity of land, but servation that the nomination of commissioners as compensation they almost certainly received was: (~ a little" system of patronage.., the lor d a greater quality of land. This point was invari- of the soil, die rector, and a few of the principal ably omitted by the critics of enclosure, though proprietors monopolise and distribute the ap- die commissioners' oath did require diem to pointments.' '7 have due regard to quantity and quality. Some As many as I43 different people were ap- of these commissioners were themselves in re- pointed as enclosure commissioners in Buck- ceipt of quite large properties. For example, inghamshire, including fllose who acted as Thomas Green of Whitchurch who acted on valuers for the Inclosure Commission set up by nine commissions, was in possession of 366 acres the General Act of Inclosure of i 845. Of these at the enclosure of his home parish in I77I-Z; 9 commissioners 83 served only once, 28 on two the widow of-William Cripps (who acted twice) occasions, and the remainder as follows: was allotted lO6 acres at the enclosure of New- port Pagnell in I794-5 ;x0 Thomas Hooton (who I served 29 times I served 9 times acted once) was allotted Io6 acres at the same I served 15 times 2 served 7 times enclosure ;n Joseph Burn_ham, who acted three I served 14 times z served 6 times times as a commissioner, and several times as I served 13 times ~, served 5 times solicitor and/or clerk, was allotted zo5 acres at I served 12 tunes 8 served 4 times the enclosure of Aylesbury in I77I-2, i2 and I served II runes 8 served 3 times James, another active member of the Burnham 3 served IO ~mes family, was allotted 261 acres at Grandborough They came from ma W walks of life. Of the ten in 1796-7 .18 Many other commissioners were members of the clergy to act, eight were active styled yeoman or gentleman, and by residence before I78O. The rest of the body of commis- or title dearly had very dose.associatious with sioners were often a mixed assortment. Edward the soil, and were obviously very well endowed Elliot, who acted once at Shipton in 1744-5, with the necessary credentials to adjudicate on was a schoolmaster, and was joined on this en- and allocate land. closure by three "yeomen" and one "gentle- The practice of separating the quality survey man." Thomas Taylor from Swanbourne, a from the quantity survey continued until the commissioner ten times in the county, lived and early x79o's, by which time a new breed of died as a carpenter, s It was also usual for a com- commissioner had developed, the land valuer- mission to consist of local dignitaries and those cure-surveyor, with skills both in quality and with a direct association with the soil, such as quantity. Earlier, specially appointed quality graziers, husbandmen, and yeoman farmers. men were assisted by one or more of the com- They conducted the allotting of the parish, and missioners. In time the latter undertook more the latter group were also employed as sur- and more of this quality assessment tmtil special veyors, not as quantity surveyors (that is land quality men were no longer required. Two of surveyors), but as quality surveyors, assessing the more notable quality assessors were John the rental value of the land, a job for which they Watts of Sulgrave in Northamptonshire, and had vast practical knowledge. One objection to Thomas Harrison of Stony Stratford in Buck- ! ! eighteenth-century enclosures is that many pro- 1 9 B.R.O. Inrolments vol. I, Whitchurch Enclosure prietors came to have greatly diminished allot- Award. i0 B.R.O. IR 67(0, Newport Pagnell Enclosure Award. J. Billingsley, General View of the Agriculture of n Ibid. Somerset, 1797, p. 59. I~B.R.O. Inroln,ents vol. x, Aylesbury Enclosure i/i s His will consisted of his carpentry tools and his stock Award. of timber: Bucks. R.O. (hereafter B.R.O.), Wills D/A~ 13 B.R.O. Imolments vol. Iv, Grandborough Enclosure ), WE/II5/I8. Award. ] ~lll!l !'1 ~j I2Z THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW inghamshire. They were also very active com- man, attending at Cublington in 1769-7o, missioners, the former six times in Bucking- Har dwick in 1778--9, and Aston Abbots in 1795, hamshire, seven times in Berkshire, and many all parishes contiguous to his home parish of times in Oxfordshire, the latter IO times in Whitchurch. His other appointments were all Buckinghamshire in the very short space of in parishes within eight miles of Whitchurch. eight years from 1767 to 177574 A number of During his lifetime there were only six enclo- other commissioners in the early period were sures within1that eight miles which escaped his also very busy men. Francis Burton of Aynho attention. No doubt he was well acquainted in Northamptonshire, styled as "Gentleman," with many of the local large landowners, so acted 15 times in Buckin~lamshire from 1762 possibly his popularity was born out of patron- 1777, 28 times in Oxfordshire, once in Wilt- age by his friends.