Any statistical account of enclosure without Parliamentary sanction must necessarily be vague in comparison with the statements which it is possible to make of enclosure by Act of Parliament, and must consist of inferences from evidence of varying value. And, naturally, the evidence in general becomes scantier in proportion as the period investigated is more remote.
The Tithe Commutation maps and awards afford the richest mine of information for the period since 1836. We have seen that according to the analysis of them published by the Copyhold, Enclosure and Tithe Commission in 1873, they indicated the existence at that date of 264,307 acres of common fields. We have already seen how untrustworthy this estimate is if taken for a basis for calculating the area of existing common fields, how inaccurate it was even at the date at which it was published. But one great source of inaccuracy in it, as we have seen, is the assumption that no enclosure, other than by Act of Parliament, took place after the date of Tithe Commutation. If we could eliminate all other errors, and also get a perfectly accurate statement of the area of existing common fields, we should then know how much enclosure of common fields has taken place without Parliamentary intervention since the date of Tithe Commutation. This date, of course, is different in different parishes, but the average date is about 1845.
To eliminate all other errors it would be necessary to go over all the work again, a task which would take a single investigator several years of continual labour, and would not then be accomplished unless the investigator were himself infallible. We must therefore be content with an approximate correction.[92]
The tithe maps and awards deposited with the Tithe Commission cover about three-quarters of the area of England and Wales. The amount of common field in the other quarter is estimated on the assumption that in each county the part for which there are no tithe awards in the custody of the Tithe Commission contained the same proportion of common field as the part for which title awards existed. The common fields thus estimated amount to about two-fifths of the total estimate. If the particulars given in the return for the different counties were added up, we should get the statement:—
| Common Field Lands. Acres. |
||
|---|---|---|
| Areas ascertained from the tithe documents | 163,823 | |
| Estimated additional areas | 100,484 | |
| 264,307 | ||
We have seen that assuming the total of 163,823 acres is correctly “ascertained,” the estimate of 100,484 acres for the other parishes is very excessive, because the most frequent reason for no title documents existing in the custody of the Tithe Commission is that the commutation of tithes was effected before 1836 by a local Enclosure Act, which swept away the common fields.
In consequence, counties which were mainly enclosed by Acts of Parliament are very partially covered by the tithe documents; counties which have few or no Acts for enclosure of common fields are nearly entirely so covered. For example, we have—
| — | Percentage of Area enclosed by Acts. | Area Covered by Tithe Documents. | Area not so Covered. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Counties of Parliamentary Enclosure. | |||
| Northampton | 51·5 | 148,066 | 485,220 |
| Rutland | 46·5 | 37,728 | 54,968 |
| Huntingdon | 46·5 | 83,856 | 146,630 |
| Bedford | 46·0 | 104,357 | 191,159 |
| Oxford | 45·6 | 214,889 | 252,417 |
| East Riding, Yorkshire | 40·1 | 263,473 | 479,228 |
| Leicester | 38·2 | 158,889 | 352,539 |
| Counties with little or no Parliamentary Enclosure. | |||
| Devon | Nil. | 1,611,710 | 46,039 |
| Cornwall | Nil. | 851,486 | 6,122 |
| Kent | Nil. | 973,726 | 29,246 |
| Shropshire | 0·3 | 788,108 | 64,385 |
| Monmouth | 0·4 | 329,430 | 16,292 |
| Cheshire | 0·5 | 599,904 | 115,931 |
Fortunately there is another possible way of calculating the probable area of common field land which would have been found in the parishes not covered by tithe documents, if it had been investigated at about the same date.
Out of the seventy-five parishes enclosed by Act of Parliament since 1850—i.e., at a later date than almost all of the tithe documents—the Tithe Commission had the maps and awards of seventy-one—all, that is, but four. Common fields subsequently enclosed were to be found in these two classes of parishes in the proportion of 71 to 4; it is a fair inference that the total area of common fields, whether subsequently enclosed or not, was distributed in the same proportion.
On this assumption we should have the following calculation:—
| Common Field Lands. Acres. |
||
|---|---|---|
| Areas ascertained from the tithe documents | 163,823 | |
| Estimated additional areas | 9,229 | |
| Total | 173,052 | |
No probable error in the additional estimate in this calculation would have an appreciable effect on the total.
Next, as we have noticed above, the “areas ascertained” require correction. This it is much more difficult to supply satisfactorily; all that we can do is to determine—(1) whether the number given is likely to err by excess or by defect; (2) whether the error is likely to be large.
The main purpose of the return was to establish the total amount of waste land subject to common rights, and the proportion of such land likely to be capable of cultivation. This part of the work was done with great care, and particularly with great care not to include any land which was not certainly subject to common rights. The final figure arrived at was certainly considerably in defect through the documents on which it was based failing to mention common rights in all cases where they existed.
The part of the return relating to common field lands, on the other hand, was considered of less importance; the explanatory letter says with regard to them:—
“The common field lands are generally distinguishable by the particular manner in which they are marked on the tithe maps, and their extent has been estimated by these maps.” This means that areas on the tithe maps subdivided by dotted lines were assumed to be common field lands. This method had the advantage of comprehensiveness—it is probable that scarcely any common field land escaped notice, if there were a tithe map for the parish in which it existed. I have only detected one error of omission. The common fields of Eakring were very considerably in excess of the 54 acres at which they were estimated. But on the other hand it has the disadvantage of including with common field lands numerous cases of properties or holdings which were inadequately divided from one another by fences or hedges, but which were not common fields. But it is very hard to say precisely what percentage ought to be deducted to allow for this error. Generalising from all the cases in which I have been able to put estimates for particular parishes to a test, I should say that more than one-sixth, but less than one-third of the total should be deducted. Taking the larger fraction, so as to leave the remainder under-estimated, rather than over-estimated, we have—
| Acres. | |
|---|---|
| Area of common field lands, by estimate above | 173,052 |
| Less one-third | 57,684 |
| 115,368 | |
| Parliamentary enclosure since 1873 has reduced the area of common fields by |
14,842 |
| 100,526 |
The final remainder represents our corrected estimate of the area of common fields arable and commonable meadows of intermixed ownership which would now exist if there had been no enclosure except by Act of Parliament since about the year 1845. The total area of such fields and meadows actually existing almost certainly does not exceed 30,000 acres. We therefore may conclude that not less than 70,000 acres have been enclosed as the result of the consolidation of farms and properties and voluntary agreements and exchanges, since about the year 1845, and that not more than 100,000 acres have been thus enclosed.
The total area of common fields enclosed by Acts since 1845, together with such meadows and commons as were enclosed together with common arable fields, is 139,517 acres.
It would therefore appear that such voluntary methods of enclosure have accounted in this period for an area something between half as large an area as Enclosure Acts and five-sevenths of that area.
The proportion of villages in which common fields have been entirely got rid of by voluntary enclosure during the same period would of course be smaller; because wherever common fields exist they are subject to continual diminution by gradual enclosure; and the final application of an Act of Parliament may be merely the coup de grace. Curiously, also, it may happen that a practically complete enclosure may be effected, and years later resort be had to an Act, as in the cases of Hildersham (Cambridge), and Sutton (Northampton).
The agricultural survey of Great Britain carried out by the Board of Agriculture in 1793 furnishes us with much information about the state of enclosure of some counties, and with scraps of information about others. Where the information is fullest it may take the form of estimates of the total area enclosed or open, or the form of information with regard to particular villages. By correlating the information thus supplied with that furnished by the Acts themselves, and from other sources, we can in some cases obtain a fairly full account of the enclosure history of a county.
The “General Report on the Agriculture of Bedfordshire” gives the following estimate of the condition of the county (p. 11):—
| Acres. | |
|---|---|
| Enclosed meadow, pasture and arable | 68,100 |
| Woodland | 21,900 |
| Common fields, common meadows, commons and waste | 217,200 |
| Total | 307,200 |
The area of Bedfordshire being 298,500 acres, a slight deduction should be made from the figures under each head. But this does not affect the two striking points about the estimate: (1) that over two-thirds of the area of the county was open, and (2) that the open and commonable land amounted to over 200,000 acres.
The author proceeds: “Every parish which is commonly understood to be open consists of a certain proportion of antient inclosed land near the respective villages, but that proportion, compared with the open common field in each respective parish, does not on an average exceed one-tenth of the whole” (p. 25).
He further says that Lidlington, Sundon and Potton had been recently enclosed. Each was enclosed by Act of Parliament.
We can deal with the above information in two ways: (1) by translating it into terms of parishes, and (2) by dealing with it in terms of acres.
In Bedfordshire very little common indeed existed apart from the open field parishes. This is proved by the fact that from 1700 to 1870 there were only three enclosures of commons, apart from arable common fields, comprising an area of 867 acres, and that the tithe maps only indicated 507 acres more of commons in parishes where there were no common fields. We may safely assume that at least 200,000 acres out of our author’s 217,200 acres of open land belonged to open field villages, and that these villages also had, in accordance with his estimate, 20,000 acres of old enclosures, the area of all the open fields parishes in 1764 was, according to the estimate, about 220,000 acres; that of the enclosed parishes about 87,200 acres. If the numbers of the parishes enclosed and open were about in the same proportion, out of the one hundred and twenty-one parishes in Bedfordshire, there should have been eighty-seven open and thirty-four enclosed.
From the list of Parliamentary enclosures in the appendix, it will be seen that seventy-three parishes were enclosed by Acts passed in 1798 and later. There were also seven other parishes in which the tithe documents indicate common fields surviving up to the date of Tithe Commission, making a total of eighty parishes, which we have previously accounted for.
It would follow that about seven parishes were enclosed in Bedfordshire between 1794 and 1845 without any Act. This is in accordance with what we might reasonably expect.
Of the thirty-four parishes which by this argument were enclosed in 1790, seventeen had been enclosed by Acts passed between the years 1742 and 1783, leaving a remainder of seventeen parishes. There is obviously a strong probability that the majority of these were enclosed in the eighteenth century.
But in this calculation I have treated the 21,900 acres of woodland as though it were part of the enclosed parishes. If it be considered to belong indifferently to open and enclosed parishes, the above calculation must be modified. We then have ninety-four parishes open in 1793, and twenty-seven enclosed; fourteen out of the ninety-four would be enclosed without Parliamentary sanction between 1793 and 1845, leaving only ten parishes so enclosed at some unknown date earlier than 1793.
By dealing with the Bedfordshire estimate on the basis of acreage instead of parishes, I arrive at the following statement of the history of the enclosure of Bedford:—
| Acres. | |
|---|---|
| Ancient woodland and waste, which passed directly into individual use, and ancient roads, &c. | 43,000 |
| Common fields, meadows and pastures enclosed before 1742 | 33,000 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1742–1793 by Acts of Parliament | 23,883 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1742–1793 not by Acts | 26,000 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1793–1900 by Acts | 114,430 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1793–1900 not by Acts | 58,000 |
| Total | 298,313 |
Arthur Young, in June, 1768, travelled through Bedfordshire to St. Neots, and then close to the boundary between Bedford and Huntingdon to Kimbolton and Thrapston in Northamptonshire. He found from Sandy to St. Neots the country chiefly open, and that it continued so to Kimbolton and Thrapston; though with regard to the two latter places he mentions enclosed pastures (“Northern Tour,” 2nd Ed., Vol. I., pp. 55–59). This, so far as it goes, tends to confirm our conclusions.
I am anxious not to lay any undue stress on the above arithmetical calculations; but I think it is quite clear that up to the year 1742 the condition of the county of Bedford was that indicated by Leland’s description.
Leland passed through Bedfordshire in his “Itinerary.” From Vol. I., fols. 116–120, we find that from Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, about 2 miles from the Bedfordshire boundary, to Bedford (14 miles) was “champaine” from Wellington village, near Bedford, to Antchille Castle (Ampthill), “12 miles almost al by Champayn Grounde, part by corne and part by Pasture, and sum baren hethy and sandy grounde.” Then “From Antchille to Dunstable X m. or more. First I passed partely by woddy ground and Enclosures. But after most parte by champaine Grounde.... And thens to Mergate al by Champaine a vj miles.” And so out of Bedfordshire. A small part of the county was ancient woodland, a smaller part was cultivated land reclaimed from the forest state, which had never passed through the common fields system of cultivation, but almost all was in the condition of the typical open field parish, common field arable, commonable meadows, and common pastures, with a certain amount of enclosure round the villages. It would appear that during the 200 years following Leland’s journey only an insignificant amount of progress in enclosure took place in Bedfordshire. This conclusion is not contradicted, but on the other hand it is not strikingly confirmed by Walter Blyth (“The English Improver,” 1649), who enumerates as unenclosed “the south part of Warwick and Worcestershire, Leicester, Notts, Rutland, some part of Lincoln, Northampton, Buckingham, some part of Bedfordshire, most part of the Vales of England, and very many parcels in most counties.”
One further point may be noticed. In Bedfordshire the percentage of the total area enclosed by Act of Parliament is exceptionally high—46·0 per cent. We find that when we make allowances for (1) contemporary voluntary enclosure, (2) for ancient woodland and for some land passing directly from the forest state into that of separate ownership and occupation, (3) for some ancient enclosing of land in the immediate vicinity of villages, there is little or no other enclosure remaining to be referred to the period before Parliamentary enclosure began—in this case the year 1742.
These four counties may be said to form a definite group, so far as their enclosure history is concerned. The main facts of their Parliamentary enclosure are shown in the following table:—
| —— | Acreage Enclosed | Percentage of Total Area. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| By 18th Century Acts. | By 19th Century Acts. | ||
| Warwick | 124,828 | 24,731 | 25·0 |
| Leicester | 187,717 | 12,660 | 38·2 |
| Rutland | 37,180 | 10,044 | 46·5 |
| Northampton | 247,517 | 85,251 | 51·8 |
Like Bedford, they are all counties with a high proportion of enclosure by Act of Parliament; but they differ from Bedford in that their enclosure was much more preponderatingly effected in the eighteenth century. The proportion of eighteenth-century Acts is particularly high in Leicester, but the proportion of Acts earlier than 1760 is higher in Warwick than in any other county—twenty-nine out of 114. These counties comprise the district in which the greatest amount of agitation arose against enclosure in the seventeenth century, and that in which the effect of enclosure in causing depopulation through decay of tillage was most marked in the eighteenth century.
Northamptonshire has 51·5 per cent. of its area covered by Acts of Parliament for the enclosure of whole parishes, a larger proportion than any other county. There have been passed in addition an important Act for extinguishing foreign rights in Rockingham Forest in 1796, an Act in 1812 for draining and enclosing Borough Fen, and creating a new parish to be called Newborough, and three other Acts for enclosing commons or wastes; the whole area affected by the five Acts being perhaps 15,000 acres. These being included, the total area which has undergone Parliamentary enclosure reaches 54 per cent. of the area of the county.
James Donaldson, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that of the 316 parishes, 227 were enclosed by 1793, and eighty-nine were then in open field; and that “half of the inclosed parishes may be denominated old inclosure.”
Of the eighty-nine parishes, open in 1793, eighty-eight have been enclosed by Act of Parliament since; so that there was only one parish enclosed without Parliamentary intervention from 1793 to 1903, when the last trace of the Northamptonshire common fields was swept away by the enclosure of Sutton. This fact is remarkable, it points to a wide diffusion of ownership of lands and of rights over the land; and it should be associated with the specially strenuous resistance of Northamptonshire to enclosure in the reign of James I.
The statement that of the enclosed parishes half may be denominated old enclosure, would be more enlightening if one knew exactly what Mr. Donaldson meant by old enclosure. But we find that 113 parishes (which is as near as possible half 227) were enclosed by Acts passed in the period 1765–1792; if therefore by “old enclosure” he means enclosure dating back more than twenty-eight years, his statement would imply that there was no enclosure without an Act in that period. Nineteen parishes were enclosed by Act in the five years 1760–1764, eighteen in the period 1749–1759, and four earlier. These Acts altogether account for the enclosure of 153 out of the 227 parishes, and there is evidently a strong balance of probability that the enclosure of the remaining seventy-two took place almost entirely before the middle of the eighteenth century.
R. Monk, the reporter for Leicester, gives as an Appendix a list of the “Lordships” of that county, with the names of the Lords of the manors, or chief landowners, and the date of enclosure, when he could ascertain it. He only knew of ten open field parishes and of two half open and half enclosed; but, of these, four, Cold Overton, Cole Orton, Whitwick and Worthington, have not since been enclosed by Act of Parliament; they must therefore have been enclosed voluntarily at the end of the eighteenth or in the first half of the nineteenth century; for the tithe documents for these parishes do not indicate any surviving common field. For thirty-five of the parishes not enclosed by Act of Parliament, Monk gives no information; of the following fifteen he gives the date of enclosure:—
| Parish. | Enclosed. |
|---|---|
| Shanktons | 1738 |
| Birstall | 1759 |
| Beeby | 1761 |
| Thurnaston | 1762 |
| Saxelby | 1765 |
| Frisby | 1769 |
| Stretton Parva | 1770 |
| Stapleford | 1772 |
| Shearsby | 1773 |
| Hathorn | 1777 |
| Ilston | 1788 |
| South Kilworth | 1789 |
| Hose | 1791 |
| Barkston and Plunger | 1791 |
The following fifty-five he merely describes as “enclosed”:—
Wanlip he describes as enclosed lately.
The following forty he describes as “old enclosure,” or gives seventeenth-century dates for their enclosure—
Pickwell, he says, was enclosed in 1628, Shenton in 1646, and Laughton in 1665.
Here, again, in interpreting these statements, we are confronted with the difficulty of determining what antiquity is implied by the term “old enclosure,” and also by the difficulty of estimating what proportion of the parishes described merely as “enclosed” belonged to any particular epoch of enclosure.
On the one hand, we note (1) that one-third of the open field parishes known to Monk were enclosed without Acts in the following half-century, (2) that he gives the date of enclosure of fifteen other parishes for which we have no Acts, which were enclosed in the previous half-century. It would therefore appear that a very considerable amount of enclosure was going on, without Acts of Parliament, during the period in which Parliamentary enclosure was proceeding rapidly.
On the other hand, the fact that he can give seventeenth-century dates for the enclosure of three parishes suggests that probably a very large proportion of his “old enclosure parishes” and a fair proportion of his enclosed parishes were enclosed in the seventeenth century.[93]
Pursuing the inquiry backwards, we find our next source of information in Celia Fiennes, a lady of Newtontony, who made a series of rides in the last few years of the seventeenth century. Newtontony is three miles east of Amesbury, amid the open chalk hills, or, as she describes it, in the midst of “a fine open champion country”, and she usually describes the aspect of the country she passes through. She travelled westwards to Land’s End, eastwards to Kent, northwards to the Border, and she gives some information with regard to the state of enclosure of most of the English counties. She went through both Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, but with regard to those two counties gives no information as to their condition of enclosure. As she is more apt to notice the presence than the absence of hedges, this, so far as it goes, confirms our conclusions with regard to Bedfordshire; and, with regard to Northamptonshire, this small piece of negative evidence tends to the conclusion that that county also was almost entirely open in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
“Leicestershire,” she says, “is a very Rich Country—Red land, good corn of all sorts and grass, both fields and inclosures. You see a great way upon their hills the bottoms full of Enclosures, woods, and different sorts of manureing and herbage” (p. 133).
It is evident that enclosure had considerably advanced; but it must be noted that “fields” with Celia Fiennes means common fields. It is further to be noted that her description of the enclosures creeping up the hills implies a process of gradual enclosure. Of the neighbourhood of Bosworth (in the west of Leicestershire) she says, “this is a great flatt full of good Enclosures.” The western side of Leicestershire was therefore mainly enclosed before 1700, while the north-east was all open till 1760.
But though enclosure was so far advanced in Leicestershire, “their fewell,” Celia Fiennes says, “is but cowdung or Coale.” The use of cowdung for fuel supplied to advocates of enclosure in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one of their chief arguments. Either the hedges of Leicestershire were not yet able to supply enough wood for fuel, or the old custom continued although it was as unnecessary as objectionable. In either case the natural inference is that much of the enclosure of Leicestershire which Celia Fiennes observed, was then recent.[94]
This again is confirmed by Walter Blyth, who in the passage quoted above describes Leicestershire as entirely open, as well as Northampton, Rutland, and the south part of Warwick.
Further detailed information is given by the disputants Joseph Lee, John Moore, and the anonymous writers who joined in the controversy, who debated the ethics of enclosure in the Midlands in the years 1653–1657. John Moore, in his first pamphlet, asks, “Above one hundred touns inclosed in Leicestershire, how few amongst them all are not unpeopled and uncorned?” Now it is probably fair to read “above one hundred” as “about one hundred” or “nearly one hundred.” The names of some of these are supplied by Joseph Lee in his “Vindication of Regulated Enclosure,” for he gives (page 5) as examples of enclosure without depopulation the following thirteen parishes in Leicestershire: Market Bosworth, Carlton, Coten, Shenton, Cadesby (Cadeby), Bilson (Billesdon), Twicriss, Higham, Golding (Stoke Golding), Little Glen, Croft, Ashby Magna, and Stapleton, together with Stoke in Northamptonshire, Upton and Barton, which might be either in Northampton or in Warwick, and three others, Nelson, Cosford and Woscot, which I am unable to locate, except that Cosford was near Catthorp, the extreme south corner of Leicestershire; for Lee further gives a list of fifteen enclosures within three miles of Catthorp, in which Cosford and Coten are included, and also Bigging, Brownsover, Shawell, Streetfield, Over, Cottesbatch, Pultney, Sturmer, Hallfield, Sister (? Siston), Moorebarn, Cotes and Misterton (p. 8).
Of the former set of townships he says: “They have been enclosed some twenty, some thirty, some forty or fifty years.” Of the latter he says: “Most of these Inclosures have been plowed within thirty years, and the rest are now about to be plowed.”
It would appear, therefore, that enclosure began in Leicestershire at about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and proceeded so rapidly that nearly a hundred townships, mainly situated in the south and west of the county, were enclosed within about fifty years. Enclosure also began in Northamptonshire about the same time, but at not so great a rate. The author of “Considerations Concerning Common Fields and Enclosures,” published in 1653, makes a reference to “Mr. Bentham’s[95] Christian Conflict” (p. 322), which gives a list of eleven manors in Northamptonshire, enclosed and depopulated. In a later sermon, “A Scripture Word against Inclosures,” 1656, John Moore says: “England (especially Leicestershire and the counties round about) stands now as guilty in the sight of God of the sinnes in the text. They sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, as Israel did then” (p. 1). A little later he again referred to “Enclosure in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and the counties adjacent.” This confirms the conclusion reached from the other evidence that Leicestershire was in the centre of the seventeenth-century movement of enclosure of common fields, and that it was in Leicestershire that the movement was most effective.
Rutlandshire has had 46·5 per cent. of its area enclosed by Acts of Parliament, 47,224 acres. Of this area 14,641 acres were enclosed by Acts passed between 1756 and 1773; then for twenty years there were no Acts, the next being passed in 1793. By that and subsequent Acts 32,583 acres were enclosed.
John Crutchley, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that two-thirds of the country was enclosed, one-third unenclosed (“Agriculture of Rutland, 1793,” p. 30). As the area (32,583 acres) is just one-third of the total area of Rutlandshire (97,273 acres), Acts of Parliament entirely account for all the enclosure since 1793. Of the area enclosed before 1793 there remains about 50,000 acres, a little more than half the county, unaccounted for.
Part at least must have been enclosed before the beginning of the eighteenth century, for Celia Fiennes says: “Rutlandshire seems more woody and enclosed than some others” (p. 54). It is one of the counties described by Walter Blyth as entirely unenclosed in 1649; but, as we have seen, this description is also applied by him to Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and as it was, especially in the case of the former county, decidedly too sweeping, we cannot infer that no enclosure took place in Rutlandshire before that date.
Leland passed through Uppingham and Stanford; he found part of the county woody, but he makes no mention of enclosure.
He also gives a very full description of the counties of Leicester and Northamptonshire. Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, and Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire, were then very extensive; but all the remainder of the two counties he describes in general as “champaine,” or by words which imply an unenclosed condition. The only mention of enclosure is in the case of two parks in Northamptonshire. (See Appendix C.)
Warwickshire is divided by the River Avon into two parts of approximately equal area; the north-western part is a district of ancient enclosure, probably enclosed in the main direct from the forest state; the south-eastern part has a similar enclosure history to Leicester and Northampton, except that its enclosure took place generally somewhat earlier. One-quarter of the whole county has undergone Parliamentary enclosure, but the proportion so enclosed of the south-eastern part is much larger.
John Wedge, the Board of Agriculture reporter, estimates that in 1793, out of a total area of 618,000 acres, 57,000 was open field land (p. 11). To reduce 618,000 to the true area of the county (577,462 acres), one must deduct 10 per cent. A deduction of 10 per cent. leaves about 51,000 acres of common field. Enclosure Acts since account for 38,444 acres, and in parishes not enclosed by Acts the tithe documents indicate rather over 1000 acres of common field lands. There remains a little over 10,000 acres unaccounted for, which has disappeared between 1793 and the date of tithe commutation.
John Wedge appears to have attempted a list of open field parishes with their area and extent of common field and waste, but only got so far as to supply this information for five parishes (p. 54), each of which has undergone subsequent enclosure by Act of Parliament. He draws attention to the contrast between the two parts of Warwickshire: “About forty years ago the southern and eastern parts of this county consisted mostly of open fields. There are still about 50,000 acres of open field land which in a few years will probably all be enclosed. These lands, being now grazed, want much fewer hands than they did in the former open state. Upon all inclosures of open fields the farms have generally been made much larger. For these causes the hardy yeomanry of country villages have been driven for employment into Birmingham, Coventry, and other manufacturing towns.”
About 90,000 acres was enclosed by Act of Parliament in the part of Warwick described between 1743 and 1798. This, together with the 50,000 acres remaining, amounts to rather less than half the area of the division of the county under consideration. As Wedge clearly was of opinion that the greater part of S.E. Warwick was open at the date he mentions, and as there is no reason for thinking he was wrong, it is to be inferred that a considerable amount of non-Parliamentary enclosure was going on in S.E. Warwick during the second half of the eighteenth century.
The extracts above given with reference to Leicester and Northampton also prove that enclosure was going on in this part of the county during the first half of the sixteenth century, though it had so little advanced up to 1649 that Blyth speaks of this part of the county as unenclosed.
Leland gives an extremely full account of the state of enclosure of Warwickshire, which shows that as early as 1540 the north-west part of the county was “much enclosed.” It was on one of his later journeys that he explored the county, entering from Oxfordshire. He found, “Banbury to Warwick, twelve miles by Champaine Groundes, fruitful of corne and grasse, and two miles by some enclosed and woody groundes” (Vol. IV., Part 2, fol. 162).
“I learned at Warwick that the most part of the shire of Warwicke, that lyeth as Avon River descendeth on the right hand or ripe of it, is in Arden (for soe is the ancient Name of that part of the shire); and the ground in Arden is much enclosed, plentifull of grasse, but not of corne. The other part of Warwickshire that lyeth on the left hand or ripe of Avon River, much to the south, is for the most part Champion, somewhat barren of wood, but plentifull of corne” (fol. 166 a).
We may add, so as to complete our review of the evidence, that William Marshall, in his book on the “Agriculture of the Midland District of England” (1790), treats a region of which the town of Leicester was near the centre, comprising the counties of Warwick, Rutland, the north of Leicester and of Northampton, the east of Staffordshire, and the southern extremities of Derby and Nottingham, as an agricultural unit. He says: “Thirty years ago much of this district was in an open state, and some townships still remain open; there are others, however, which appear to have been long in a state of enclosure, and in which, no doubt, the present system of management originated” (p. 8). This does not add to our information about this district, but the fact that Marshall was perfectly correct in his reading of the story told by the aspect of the country is important, because for some other districts his testimony is material.
To sum up, we find that in the north-west of Warwick enclosure was general as early as 1540, while it was practically non-existent in the south-east of that county and in Leicester, Northampton and Rutland. We find that the movement towards enclosure of the “champaine” country began about the year 1600, that it proceeded steadily in spite of great popular resistance through the seventeenth century, but at a much greater rate in Leicester, and probably in S.E. Warwick, than in Northamptonshire, the rate in Rutland being probably slower than in Leicester, but certainly greater than in Northamptonshire, the course of the movement being from west to east; that about half of S.E. Warwick and of Leicester was enclosed when the movement of Parliamentary enclosure began, but less than half of Rutland, and not more than quarter (probably not more than a fifth) of Northamptonshire.
We have seen that the enclosure of Bedford was later than this, and we shall see that the same is true of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon. In the midlands of England the course of enclosure from 1600 onwards was from west to east.
A word may be added with regard to the methods by which non-Parliamentary enclosure was effected in this district. There was great diversity in Leicestershire from village to village with regard to the diffusion of property, as may be seen from Monk’s Appendix, in which he endeavours to give the names of the principal owners in each “lordship.” Some were entirely in the hands of a single individual, others had many owners, but in the great majority the land was mainly, but not entirely, owned by the lord of the manor. The description of the enclosure of S.E. Warwick supplied by John Wedge, the consolidation of farms, and the depopulation of the villages, indicates that there enclosure, whether by Act of Parliament or not, was carried through by the authority of the lord of the manor, he being the main landowner.
The method by which this would be done when an Act of Parliament was not resorted to is fully explained by Edward Lawrence (“The Duty of a Steward to his Lord, 1727”), Article XIV.
“A Steward should not forget to make the best Enquiry into the disposition of any of the Freeholders within or near any of his Lord’s Manors, to sell their Lands, that he may use his best Endeavours to purchase them at as reasonable a price as may be for his Lord’s Advantage and Convenience ... especially in such Manors where improvements are to be made by inclosing Commons and Common Fields; which (as every one, who is acquainted with the late Improvements in Agriculture must know) is not a little advantageous to the Nation in general, as well as highly profitable to the Undertaker. If the Freeholders cannot all be perswaded to sell, yet at least an Agreement for Inclosing should be pushed forward, by the Steward, and a scheme laid, wherein it may appear that an exact and proportional share will be allotted to every proprietor; perswading them first, if possible, to sign a Form of Agreement, and then to chuse Commissioners on both sides.... If the Steward be a Man of good sense, he will find a necessity of making use of it all, in rooting out superstition from amongst them, as what is so great a hindrance to all noble Improvements.” The superstition referred to, is that enclosed land is cursed, and doomed in three generations to pass out of the hands of the descendants of the proprietor who enclosed it.
That in the early seventeenth century much of the enclosure was carried out by the power of the lord of the manor is plain from the scraps of information given by John Moore. Thus he tells us that Ashby Magna was enclosed in 1606, and that the lord gave most of his tenants leases for three lives and twenty-one years after (“Scripture Word Against Inclosures,” p. 9), that being the reason why depopulation had not resulted up to 1656; that in both Misterton and Poultney no house at all was left except the minister’s, so that these two manors must have been the property of absentee landlords.
But Catthorpe had no lord of the manor, it consisted of 580 acres divided among eight freeholders and five or six holders of “ancient cottages” who were also Freeholders (Joseph Lee, p. 5). The enclosure was carried out by the agreement of all the owners, except one who objected on conscientious grounds. The way in which these agreements to enclose were effected in parishes where property was divided is thus described by Moore:—“In common fields they live like loving neighbours together for the most part, till the Spirit of Inclosure enter into some rich Churles heart, who doe not only pry out but feign occasions to goe to law with their neighbours, and no reconcilement be made till they consent to Inclosure. So this Inclosure makes thieves, and then they cry out of thieves. Because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. If it had not been for two or three righteous in many Townes of these Inland Counties, what desolation had there been made ere this time?” (Scripture Word, p. 12).
Much of these two counties anciently consisted of fen and marsh, and of the land now cultivated a great deal never passed through the common field system. But the “upland” of each county was very late in undergoing enclosure.
Vancouver, the reporter for Cambridgeshire, gives an estimate of the areas of lands of different description, which I slightly rearrange below.
| —— | Unenclosed. | Enclosed. | Doubtful. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | |
| Enclosed arable | — | 15,000 | — |
| Open field arable | 132,000 | — | — |
| Improved pasture | — | 52,000 | — |
| Inferior pasture | — | — | 19,800 |
| Improved fen | — | 50,000 | — |
| Woodland | — | — | 1,000 |
| Waste and unimproved fen | 150,000 | — | — |
| Half-yearly meadow land | 2,000 | — | — |
| Highland common | 7,500 | — | — |
| Fen or moor common | 8,000 | — | — |
| Heath and sheepwalk | 6,000 | — | — |
| 305,500 | 117,000 | 20,800 | |
| Total area, 443,300 acres. | |||
The actual area of Cambridgeshire is 549,723 acres; but Vancouver was an exact and careful observer, and the proportions between the areas assigned to each description were no doubt reasonably accurate. Here we find over two-thirds of the total area unenclosed, and more than eight-ninths of the arable land. It is, of course, possible, probable even, that a larger amount than 15,000 acres of open field arable had undergone enclosure, and that the 52,000 acres of improved pasture includes a good deal of such land, laid down in grass on enclosure. But even if we included the whole, there would only be 67,000 acres of ancient common field arable which had undergone enclosure, compared with 132,000 acres still open.
Vancouver also gives detailed accounts of ninety-eight of the Cambridgeshire parishes, eighty-three of which were open, fifteen enclosed. Of those which were open in 1793, seventy-four have since been enclosed by Act of Parliament, nine have not, viz., Babraham, Boxworth, Downham, Ely, Littleport, Lolworth, Madingley, Soham and Over.
Babraham had 1,350 acres of common field, and Vancouver says that enclosure was desired. It was completely effected before the date of tithe commutation.
Boxworth had 900 acres of common field. “The whole of this parish,” says Vancouver, “lies within a ring fence and containing 2,100 acres, is the property of one gentlemen.” Vancouver’s acres, as we have seen, are large ones; the actual area is 2,526 acres. Enclosure was effected before the date of tithe commutation, and as might be supposed under the circumstances, without an Act.
Downham had, according to Vancouver, 680 acres of common field; the tithe map indicates 450 acres still remaining.
To Ely he assigns 2,100 acres of common field. This had all gone at the time of tithe commutation.
Of 345 acres assigned to Littleport, a remnant of forty acres survived to be recorded in the tithe map.
The common field land of Lolworth suffered no diminution; for while Vancouver gives it 650 acres, the tithe map indicates 800 acres. They were enclosed at the time of the Crimean war by common agreement of the owners, without an Act. This was the last surviving common field parish in the vicinity.
In Soham enclosure was nearly as slow. Vancouver assigns it 1,200 acres of common field; the tithe map 1,100 acres.
Madingley, Vancouver says, had 1,030 acres of common field. These were all enclosed before the date of tithe commutation.
For Over the Board of Agriculture has no tithe documents; but we may add that Horseheath had about 750 acres of common field, out of a total of 1,850 acres, according to the tithe map.
Of the fifteen parishes stated by Vancouver to have been enclosed before 1793, only two were enclosed by Act of Parliament.
The extent of the information obtained from the Acts, the tithe documents, and Vancouver’s report is as follows:—
Of the 152 agricultural parishes of Cambridgeshire, we know the date of enclosure of 118, enclosed by Acts of Parliament. These are given in Appendix B.
Of thirteen, viz., Arrington, Childerley, Chippingham, Hatley St. George, Leverington, Newton in the Isle of Ely, Outwell, Tadlow, Tid St. Giles, Upwell-cum-Welney, and Wisbeach St. Mary, we know that they were enclosed without Acts before 1793. The date 1790 is given for Chippingham, and a small remnant of common field survived till 1851 in Newton.
Four parishes were enclosed, not by Acts, between 1793 and the date of tithe commutation—Babraham, Boxworth, Ely and Madingley.
Five parishes which were not entirely enclosed even at the date of tithe commutation have not been enclosed by Act since. These are Lolworth, which then had only about one-fifth of its area enclosed; Horseheath, which was about half enclosed; Soham, which had about 1,100 acres of common field and 456 acres of common, out of a total area of nearly 13,000 acres; and Downham and Littleport, which had respectively 450 and forty acres of common field remaining.
Of one parish, Over, we only know that it was open in 1793.
Of nine parishes, Borough Green, Croydon-cum-Clapton, East Hatley, Papworth St. Agnes, Long Stanton, Westley Waterless, Wisbeach St. Peter, Witcham and Witchford, we only know that they were enclosed before the date of tithe commutation.
Of two, Little Gransden and Stanground, we have no information.
I have before laid stress upon the eastward march of enclosure in the midlands during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, which the following comparison illustrates:—
| — | Parliamentary Enclosure. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the 18th Century. | In the 19th Century. | |||
| Acts. | Acres. | Acts. | Acres. | |
| Warwick | 91 | 124,828 | 23 | 24,731 |
| Cambridge | 23 | 51,028 | 85 | 147,311 |
Celia Fiennes traversed the county. She describes the part from Littlebery (in Essex) to Cambridge as entirely open (p. 48), and makes no mention of enclosures in the description of the view from the “Hogmogoge Hills” (p. 49), but she speaks of “good enclosure” between Cambridge and Huntingdon.
Though Cambridgeshire was on the whole so late in undergoing enclosure, the conversion of arable into tillage had so far proceeded that about one-fifth of the county was included in the Inquisition of 1517, and it was found that in this part 1,422 acres had been enclosed and converted into parks or pasture (Leadam, “Domesday of Inclosures”).
George Maxwell, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that Huntingdon contains one hundred and six towns and hamlets, of which forty-one were then (1793) wholly enclosed, and of the remaining sixty-five a very considerable part was enclosed. He computes that about a half of the “high land part” of the county, which would, of course, include all old arable land, was still unenclosed (“Agriculture of Huntingdon,” p. 16).
Fifty-eight parishes were enclosed by Acts subsequently to the date of his report, and one parish (Lutton) remained open to the date of tithe commutation. This leaves six out of the sixty-five open or partially enclosed parishes of his report, in which enclosure was completed by the middle of the nineteenth century without any Act.
Of the forty-one parishes wholly enclosed before 1793, twenty were enclosed by Acts of Parliament, leaving twenty-one parishes which might have been enclosed contemporaneously without Acts, or to be assigned to the time previous to the beginning of Parliamentary enclosure.
Some of this enclosure is certainly to be assigned to an early date. Celia Fiennes, as we have seen, found more enclosure as she came to Huntingdon from Cambridge. Leland also found enclosure in the smaller county.
“From Cambridge to Elteste village al by champeyne counterey 8 miles. St. Neotes 4 miles. From St. Neotes to Stoughton Village by sum enclosid ground a 3 Miles, it is in Huntendunshir. From Stoughton to Meichdown Village a 4 Miles be much Pasture and Corne ground ... there be goodly Gardens, Orchards, Ponds, and a Parke thereby.”