Abstract
THE term enclosure mainly refers to that land reform which transformed a traditional method of agriculture under systems of co-operation and communality in communally administered holdings, usually in large fields which were devoid of physical territorial boundaries, into a system of agricultural holding in severalty by separating with physical boundaries one person’s land from that of his neighbours. This was, then, the disintegration and reformation of the open fields into individual ownership. Inter alia enclosure registered specific ownership, adjudicated on shared ownership (for example by identifying and separating common rights), and declared void for all time communal obligations, privileges and rights. Enclosure also meant the subdivision of areas of commons, heaths, moors, fens and wastes into separate landholdings and again involved the abandonment of obligations, privileges and rights.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
(a) Review and bibliography
J. Blum, ‘Review Article. English Parliamentary Enclosure’, Journal of Modern History, 103 (1981).
J. G. Brewer, Enclosures and the Open Fields: A Bibliography (1972).
R. Morgan, Dissertations on British Agrarian History (1981).
M. E. Turner, ‘Recent Progress in the Study of Parliamentary Enclosure’, The Local Historian, 12 (Feb. 1976).
(b) Sources
I. H. Adams, Directory of Former Scottish Commonties (Scottish Record Society, 2, 1971).
I. Bowen, The Great Inclosures of Common Lands in Wales (1914).
T. I. J. Jones, Acts of Parliament Concerning Wales 1714–1901 (1959).
Return, ‘Return of Commons (Inclosure Awards)’, Parliamentary Papers — House of Commons, 50 (1904).
Return, ‘Return of Inclosure Acts’, Parliamentary Papers — House of Commons, 399 (1914).
W. E. Tate, A Domesday of English Enclosure Acts and Awards (1978).
(c) Contemporary
Board of Agriculture, General Report on Enclosures (1808).
T. Davis, General View of the Agriculture of Wiltshire (1811).
H. Homer, An Essay on the Nature and Method of Ascertaining the Specific Shares of Proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common Fields (1766).
Reports, ‘Three Reports from the Select Committee Appointed to take into Consideration the Means of Promoting the Cultivation and Improvement of the Waste, Uninclosed and Unproductive Lands in the Kingdom’, Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons Select Committee Reports, 9 (1795–1801).
T. Stone, Suggestions for Rendering the Inclosure of Common Fields and Waste Lands a Source of Population and Riches (1787).
A. Young, The Farmer’s Tour through the East of England (1771).
—, General View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire (1813).
(d) Books and articles pre-1940 (England and wales)
W. H. R. Curtler, The Enclosure and Redistribution of our Land (1920).
E. Davies, ‘The Small Landowner 1780–1832, in the Light of the Land Tax Assessments’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 1 (1927).
E. C. K. Gonner, Common Land and Inclosure (1912).
H. L. Gray, ‘Yeoman Farming in Oxfordshire from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 24 (1910).
J. L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer (1911).
A. H. Johnson, The Disappearance of the Small Landowner (1909).
V. M. Lavrovsky, ‘Tithe Commutation as a Factor in the Gradual Decrease of Landownership by the English Peasantry’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 4 (1932–4).
—, ‘Parliamentary Enclosures in the County of Suffolk, (1797–1814)’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 7 (1937).
J. Rae, ‘Why have the Yeomanry Perished?’, Contemporary Review, 44 (1883).
G. Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields (1907).
T. H. Swales, ‘The Parliamentary Enclosures of Lindsey’, Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological Societies of Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, in two parts, old series 42 (1937), new series 2 (1938).
(e) Books and articles 1940 and later (England And Wales)
R. C. Allen, ‘The Efficiency and Distributional Consequences of Eighteenth Century Enclosures’, Economic Journal, 92 (1982).
W. G. Armstrong, ‘The Influence of Demographic Factors on the Position of the Agricultural Labourer in England and Wales, c. 1750–1914’, AHR, 29 (1981).
T. S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: the Eighteenth Century (1955).
B. D. Baack, ‘The Development of Exclusive Property Rights to Land in England: An Exploratory Essay’, Economy and History, 22 (1979).
B. D. Baack and R. P. Thomas, ‘The Enclosure Movement and the Supply of Labour during the Industrial Revolution’, JEEH, 3 (1974).
T. W. Beastall, A North Country Estate: The Lumleys and Saundersons as Landowners 1600–1900 (1975).
J. V. Beckett, ‘Regional Variation and the Agricultural Depression’, EcHR, 35 (1982).
—, ‘The Decline of the Small Landowner in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century England: Some Regional Considerations’, AHR, 30 (1982).
M. W. Beresford, ‘The Commissioners of Enclosure’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 16 (1946).
—, ‘The Decree Rolls of Chancery as a Source for Economic History, 1547-c.1700’, EcHR, 32 (1979).
B. J. Buchanan, ‘The Financing of Parliamentary Waste Land Enclosure: Some Evidence from North Somerset, 1770–1830’, AHR, 30 (1982).
R. A. Butlin, ‘Enclosure and Improvement in Northumberland in the Sixteenth Century’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 45 (1967).
—, ‘Field Systems of Northumberland and Durham’, in A. R. H. Baker and R. A. Butlin (eds), Studies of Field Systems in the British Isles (1973).
—, ‘The Enclosure of Open Fields and Extinction of Common Rights in England, c. 1600–1750: A Review’, in H. S. A. Fox and R. A. Butlin (eds), Change in the Countryside: Essays on Rural England, 1500–1900 (1979).
J. D. Chambers, ‘Enclosure and the Small Landowner’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 10 (1940).
—, ‘Enclosure and the Small Landowner in Lindsey’, The Lincolnshire Historian, 1 (1947).
—, ‘Enclosure and Labour Supply in the Industrial Revolution’, EcHR, 5 (1953), and reprinted in E. L. Jones (ed.), Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1650–1815 (1967).
J. D. Chambers and G. E. Mingay, The Agricultural Revolution, 1750–1880 (1966).
J. Chapman, ‘Land Purchases at Enclosure: Evidence from West Sussex’, The Local Historian, 12 (1977).
—, ‘Some Problems in the Interpretation of Enclosure Awards’, AHR, 26 (1978).
—, ‘The Parliamentary Enclosures of West Sussex’, Southern History, 2 (1980).
J. Chapman and T. M. Harris, ‘The Accuracy of Enclosure Estimates: Some Evidence from Northern England’, Journal of Historical Geography, 8 (1982).
N. F. R. Crafts, ‘Determinants of the Rate of Parliamentary Enclosure’, EEH, 14 (1977).
—, ‘Enclosure and Labour Supply Revisited’, EEH, 15 (1978).
—, ‘Income Elasticities of Demand and the Release of Labour by Agriculture During the British Industrial Revolution’, JEEH, 9 (1980).
C. Dahlman, The Open Field System and Beyond: A Property Rights Analysis of an Economic Institution (1980).
H. C. Darby, ‘The Age of the Improver: 1600–1800’, in H. C. Darby (ed.), A New Historical Geography of England (1973).
S. R. Eyre, ‘The Upward Limit of Enclosure on the East Moor of North Derbyshire’, TrIBG, 23 (1957).
R. T. Fieldhouse, ‘Agriculture in Wensleydale from 1600 to the Present Day’, Northern History, 16 (1980).
D. V. Fowkes, ‘Mapleton an Eighteenth Century Private Enclosure’, Derbyshire Miscellany, 6 (1972).
D. B. Grigg, ‘Small and Large Farms in England and Wales’, Geography,48 (1963).
—, ‘The Land Tax Returns’, AHR, 11 (1963).
—, The Agricultural Revolution in South Lincolnshire (1966).
M. Havinden, ‘Agricultural Progress in Open Field Oxfordshire’, AHR, 9 (1961).
R. I. Hodgson, ‘The Progress of Enclosure in County Durham, 1550–1870’, in H. S. A. Fox and R. A. Butlin (eds), Change in the Countryside: Essays on Rural England, 1500–1900 (1979).
B. A. Holderness, ‘Capital Formation in Agriculture, 1750–1850’, in J. P. P. Higgins and S. Pollard (eds), Aspects of Capital Investment in Great Britain 1750–1850 (1971).
W. G. Hoskins, ‘The Reclamation of the Waste in Devon, 1550–1800’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 13 (1943).
H. G. Hunt, ‘The Chronology of Parliamentary Enclosure in Leicestershire’, EcHR, 10 (1957).
—, ‘Landownership and Enclosure, 1750–1830’, EcHR, 11 (1958–9).
S. A. Johnson, ‘Some Aspects of Enclosure and Changing Agricultural Landscapes in Lindsey from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century’, Reports and Papers of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, 9 (1962).
E. Kerridge, The Agricultural Revolution (1967).
V. M. Lavrovsky, Parliamentary Enclosure of the Common Fields in England at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth (1940); this is an English translation of the title only. The book has never been translated but see the review by C. Hill, EcHR, 1st Ser., 12 (1942).
—, ‘The Expropriation of the English Peasantry in the Eighteenth Century’, EcHR, 9 (1956–7).
D. N. McCloskey, ‘The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a study of its Impact on the Efficiency of English Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Economic History, 32 (1972).
—, ‘The Persistence of English Common Fields’, in W. N. Parker and E. L. Jones (eds), European Peasants and their Markets: Essays in Agrarian History (1975).
—, ‘The Economics of Enclosure: A Market Analysis’, in W. N. Parker and E. L. Jones (eds), European Peasants and their Markets: Essays in Agrarian History (1975).
—, ‘English Open Fields as Behaviour Towards Risk’, Research in Economic History, 1 (1976).
J. M. Martin, ‘Landownership and the Land Tax Returns’, AHR, 14 (1966).
—, ‘The Parliamentary Enclosure Movement and Rural Society in Warwickshire’, AHR, 15 (1967).
—, ‘The Cost of Parliamentary Enclosure in Warwickshire’, in E. L. Jones (ed.), Agriculture and Economic Growth in England 1650–1815 (1967).
—, ‘Members of Parliament and Enclosure: A Reconsideration’, AHR, 27 (1979).
—, ‘The Small Landowner and Parliamentary Enclosure in Warwickshire’, EcHR, 32 (1979).
John Martin, ‘Enclosure and the Inquisitions of 1607: An Examination of Dr Kerridge’s Article, “The Returns of the Inquisitions of Depopulation”’, AHR, 30 (1982).
D. R. Mills, ‘Enclosure in Kesteven’, AHR, 7 (1959).
G. E. Mingay, ‘The Size of Farms in the Eighteenth Century’, EcHR, 14 (1962).
—, ‘The Land Tax Assessments and the Small Landowner’, EcHR, 17 (1964).
—, Enclosure and the Small Farmer in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (1968).
—, (ed.),Arthur Young and His Times (1975).
J. L. Purdum, ‘Profitability and Timing of Parliamentary Land Enclosures’, EEH, 15 (1978).
B. K. Roberts, ‘Field Systems in the West Midlands’, in A. R. H. Baker and R. A. Butlin (eds), Studies of Field Systems in the British Isles (1973).
E. and R. Russell, Landscape Changes in South Humberside: The Enclosures of Thirty-Seven Parishes (1982).
R. E. Sandell, Abstracts of Wiltshire Inclosure Awards and Agreements (Wiltshire Record Society, 25 for 1969 published 1971).
J. Saville, ‘Primitive Accumulation and Early Industrialisation in Britain’, The Socialist Register, 6 (1969).
L. D. Stamp and W. G. Hoskins, The Common Lands of England and Wales (1963).
W. E. Tate, ‘Members of Parliament and the Proceedings upon Enclosure Bills’, EcHR, 1st Ser., 12 (1942).
—, ‘Parliamentary Counter-Petitions During the Enclosures of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, English Historical Review, 59 (1944).
—, ‘Opposition to Parliamentary Enclosure in Eighteenth Century England’, Agricultural History, 19 (1945).
—, ‘Members of Parliament and Their Personal Relations to Enclosure’, Agricultural History, 23 (1949).
—, ‘The Cost of Parliamentary Enclosure in England’, EcHR, 5 (1952).
—, The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movement (1967).
D. Thomas, Agriculture in Wales During the Napoleonic Wars (1963).
J. G. Thomas, ‘The Distribution of the Commons in part of Arwystli at the Time of Enclosure’, Montgomeryshire Collections, 54 (1955).
—, ‘Some Enclosure Patterns in Central Wales’, Geography, 42 (1957).
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963).
K. Tribe, Genealogies of Capitalism (1981).
M. E. Turner, ‘The Cost of Parliamentary Enclosure in Buckinghamshire’, AHR, 21 (1973).
—, ‘Parliamentary Enclosure and Landownership Change in Buckinghamshire’, EcHR, 28 (1975).
—, ‘Enclosure Commissioners and Buckinghamshire Parliamentary Enclosure’, AHR, 25 (1977).
—, English Parliamentary Enclosure (1980).
—, ‘Cost, Finance, and Parliamentary Enclosure’, EcHR, 34 (1981).
—, ‘Agricultural Productivity in England in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from Crop Yields’, EcHR, 35 (1982).
—, (ed.), Home Office Acreage Returns (HO67), (List and Index Society in four volumes, 189–90, 1982, and 195–6, 1983).
J. Walton, ‘The Residential Mobility of Farmers and its Relationship to the Parliamentary Enclosure Movement in Oxfordshire’, in A. D. M. Phillips and B. J. Turton (eds), Environment, Man and Economic Change (1975).
M. Williams, ‘The Enclosure and Reclamation of Wasteland in England and Wales in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, TrIBG, 51 (1970).
—, ‘The Enclosure and Reclamation of the Mendip Hills’, AHR, 19 (1971).
—, ‘The Enclosure of Wasteland in Somerset’, TrIBG, 57 (1972).
E. M. Yates, ‘Enclosure and the Rise of Grassland Farming in Staffordshire’, North Staffordshire Journal of Field Studies, 14 (1974).
J. A. Yelling, ‘Common Land and Enclosure in East Worcestershire, 1540–1870’, TrIBG, 45 (1968).
—, ‘Changes in Crop Production in East Worcestershire, 1540–1867’, AHR 21 (1973).
—, Common Field and Enclosure in England 1450–1850 (1977).
(f) Scotland
I. H. Adams, ‘The Land Surveyor and His Influence on the Scottish Rural Landscape’, SGM, 84 (1968).
—, ‘Economic Process and the Scottish Land Surveyor’, Imago Mundi, 27 (1975).
—, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland: Contributions to The Debate’, Area, 10 (1978).
—, ‘The Agents of Agricultural Change’, in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds) ([140] below).
J. B. Caird, ‘The Making of the Scottish Rural Landscape’, SGM, 80 (1964).
—, ‘The Reshaped Agricultural Landscape’, in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds) ([140] below).
I. Carter, Farmlife in Northeast Scotland 1840–1914 (1979).
R. A. Dodgshon, ‘The Removal of Runrig in Roxburghshire and Berwickshire 1680–1766’, Scottish Studies, 16 (1972).
—, ‘Towards an Understanding and Definition of Runrig: the Evidence for Roxburghshire and Berwickshire’, TrIBG, 64 (1975).
—, ‘The Origins of Traditional Field Systems’, in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds) ([140] below).
R. A. Gailey, ‘Agrarian Improvement and the Development of Enclosure in the South-West Highlands of Scotland’, Scottish Historical Review, 42 (1963).
I. F. Grant, ‘The Social Effects of the Agricultural Reforms and Enclosure Movement in Aberdeenshire’, Economic History, 1 (1926–9).
M. Gray, ‘Scottish Emigration: The Social Impact of Agrarian Change in the Rural Lowlands, 1775–1875’, Perspectives in American History, 7 (1973).
H. Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (1963).
J. E. Handley, Scottish Farming in the Eighteenth Century (1953).
—, The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland (1963).
J. H. G. Lebon, ‘The Process of Enclosure in the Western Lowlands’, SGM, 62 (1946).
D. R. Mills, ‘A Scottish Agricultural Revolution?’, Area, 8 (1976).
A. C. O’Dell, ‘A View of Scotland in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century’, SGM, 69 (1953).
M. L. Parry, ‘A Scottish Agricultural Revolution?’, Area, 8 (1976).
—, ‘Changes in the Extent of Improved Farmland’, in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds) ([140] below).
M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds), The Making of the Scottish Countryside (1980).
T. C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560–1830 (1969).
—, Introduction to Sir John Sinclair (ed.), The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791–99, Vol. II, The Lothians (1975).
T. C. Smout and A. Fenton, ‘Scottish Agriculture before the Improvers: An Exploration’, AHR, 13 (1965).
J. A. Symon, Scottish Farming Past and Present (1959).
B. M. W. Third, ‘Changing Landscape and Social Structure in Scottish Lowlands as Revealed by Eighteenth Century Estate Plans’, SGM, 71 (1955).
G. Whittington, ‘The Problem of Runrig’, SGM, 86 (1970).
—, ‘Was there a Scottish Agricultural Revolution?’, Area, 7 (1975).
—, ‘Field Systems of Scotland’, in A. R. H. Baker and R. A. Butlin (eds), Studies of Field Systems in the British Isles (1973).
I. D. Whyte, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland: Contributions to the Debate’, Area, 10 (1978).
—, Agriculture and Society in Seventeenth Century Scotland (1979).
—, ‘The Emergence of the New Estate Structure’, in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater (eds) ([140] above).
(g) Theses (see also [3] above, pp. 69–73)
J. R. Ellis, Parliamentary Enclosure in Wiltshire (PhD, University of Bristol, 1971).
H. G. Hunt, The Parliamentary Enclosure Movement in Leicestershire, 1730–1842 (PhD, University of London, 1956).
J. M. Martin, Warwickshire and the Parliamentary Enclosure Movement (PhD, University of Birmingham, 1965).
J. M. Neesom, Common Right and Enclosure in Eighteenth Century Northamptonshire (PhD, University of Warwick, 1977).
W. S. Rodgers, The Distribution of Parliamentary Enclosures in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1729–1850 (MComm, University of Leeds, 1953).
M. E. Turner, Some Social and Economic Considerations of Parliamentary Enclosure in Buckinghamshire, 1738–1865 (PhD, University of Sheffield, 1973).
J. R. Walton, Aspects of Agrarian Change in Oxfordshire, 1750–1880 (DPhil, University of Oxford, 1976).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1984 The Economic History Society
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Turner, M. (1984). Enclosures in Britain 1750–1830. In: Clarkson, L.A. (eds) The Industrial Revolution A Compendium. Studies in Economic and Social History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10936-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10936-4_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-10938-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10936-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)